It's Like Hell
by Zed-Azrael
Summary: AU. We moved to get away from the craziness of city life. But Mom didn’t know that moving us out to the suburbs would land me with the hot Roxas, his psycho twin who wanted to castrate me, and their freaky manparents. AkuRoku RikuSora Zemyx TerraVen
1. The Beginning of the End

**Summary:** AU. We moved to get away from the craziness of city life. But Mom didn't know that moving us out to the suburbs would land me with the hot Roxas, his psycho twin who wants to castrate me, and their freaky man-parents. AkuRoku, RikuSora, Zemyx.  
**Disclaimer:** If I owned Kingdom Hearts, Re:CoM and KHII:FM wouldn't have been Japan-only merchandise. :P Seriously. That sucks ass…like…like über ass. Like…like…Cartman-ass. XD  
**Warnings:** Yaoi/slash, general bad attempts at humour, and vulgar jokes and language.  
**Rant:** XDDD I cannot tell you guys how much fun I had writing this. I know I always complain about how I can't write humour for jackshit, but this one just came naturally. Granted, this is my humour, and I dunno how you guys'll take to it, so, we'll see what happens.  
This is the first of two Kingdom Hearts AUs that I've got planned out. (AUs as in things that don't even vaguely resemble the games. Heh, not like _'Twilight'_. Sorry, guys. This isn't anything like that. XD ) _:scratches head:_ There's not much else to say other than that. _:sheepish grin:_ Proceed onwards!

* * *

**Started:** November 22, 2007.  
**Completed:** November 26, 2007.

* * *

**Once upon a time…**

…

Nah, I'm just kidding.

* * *

**It's Like Hell**  
_(…e__xcept worse.)_  
The Beginning of the End  
_(…seriously.)_

* * *

**I laid sprawled out across the middle row of my mom's Mom-mobile**, one of my legs dangling over the overstuffed violet suitcase in the seat next to me, the other buried under a pile of my mom's stuffed animals. Outside the window, oddly-coloured golden-bricked buildings and the blinding horizon flashed by. But that's just me being poetic about junk. I really couldn't see any of that shit out the window. My mom, you see, has always had a terrible case of road rage. For a tiny woman, she's actually kinda terrifying behind the wheel of her huge-ass minivan, what with all the speeding and the riding of bumpers and the general swearing.

God. I love you, Mom.

Well… Except for on this day. Y'see, Mom had just decided to move us out from the 'hood of Midgar to this lame-ass suburb on the other end of the province, past Twilight Town and just outside of Hollow Bastion.

Mom, as per usual, wasn't looking at the road at all, and was instead admiring the view. "Isn't Twilight Town beautiful?" she gushed dreamily.

I blew a bubble and popped it. "No way, Mom," I said flatly as I scrolled through the songs on my iPod. "This place is fucking creepy."

Mom snorted. "Then be happy we're not moving here," she said simply.

This time, I snorted. "The fact that we're moving anywhere is hardly something to be happy about. Seriously, Mom, Midgar was freaking awesome." I glanced over at the back of the driver's seat, and I could just catch a glimpse of Mom's strawberry-coloured hair between her headrest and the seat itself. "I mean, dude, I could away with murdering that prick, Professor Vexen, and nobody would even care!"

Mom sighed tiredly. "Really, Axel," she was saying, "I don't know why you're treating this move like it's the end of the world—"

"Aw, dude, the End of the World Theme Park is so fucking sweet!"

"Axel, don't interrupt me."

Reno snickered at my expense, so I kicked the back of his seat in retaliation. Haha! He will rue the day he stole my rightful place at shotgun! (Insert evil laugh here.)

"Ahem," Mom said loudly, spinning around in her seat to glare at me—and running a red-light in the process. When she had most of my attention, she continued: "Really, Axel," she reprimanded, "stop being a drama queen and quit sulking. You're seventeen, now. Why can't you be more mature, like your brother?" she complained, turning back to actually _watch_ the road.

Reno smirked at me from the passenger seat, so I kicked the back of his seat again. He scowled at me, and turned to Mom, plastering a horribly wide grin over his smug face. "I _know_, Mom," he drawled. "I suppose that _some_ people just never grow up…"

I flipped him the bird.

Mom tore her eyes off the road to glare at me through the rear-view mirror. "I saw that, Axel," she barked at me, then, to Reno: "Don't be a kiss-ass, boy."

Reno put on a face of abashed and violated disgust. "God, Mom!" he shrieked. "Kiss _your_ ass? Hell, no! That's fucking _nasty_, woman!"

"Shut up, asshole," Mom said lazily. "My ass is way hot."

This was my turn to be repulsed. "No, it's not!" I groaned. "Maybe twenty years ago it was hot shit, but that was then, and this is_ now_. And I'm tellin' ya, lady, nobody would tap that."

"Yeah, Ma," Reno agreed. "Even Axel's ass is more fuckable than yours."

"Up yours, dickface!" Mom screeched. "My ass is freaking _awesome_!! My ass totally _pwns_ both of your asses!! It's goddamn _fan-ass-tic_!"

Me and Reno laughed at this, and Mom ended up cracking up, too. And it was all cool. Except, not really, 'cause the old hag ended up suspending us from watching television for a week. Obviously, we complained for the next hour and a half.

But, yeah, that's the way my family rolls. It's not Disney, but, I mean, God, what do you expect from a trio of opinionated, potty-mouthed redheads with short tempers?

After another two hours of speeding and running red-lights, we landed in the heart of Hollow Bastion; and I gotta tell you, Hollow Bastion was way cooler to drive through than that sleepy Twilight Town. Hollow Bastion was actually…well, _awake_. It was kinda like Midgar, except cleaner and with shorter buildings. There were people running around all over the place, and the traffic was horrible. Mom, despite the fact that she hates traffic with a passion the size of a relatively-large continent, seemed rather giddy about the whole situation. She was practically reliving her whole childhood, I guess. Before she moved out to Destiny Islands, she used to live in the Bastion. Apparently not much had changed, 'cause she was gleefully pointing out all the hangouts from back in the Stone Age.

"Ooh, ooh!" she squealed, bouncing up and down in her seat like a five year old. "Look over there, boys! See that ice cream shop over there?" She grabbed Reno by his ponytail and jerked him from his seat, across the gears, and across her lap so he could see out her window. "Do you see it, sweetie?"

Reno grunted the best sort of affirmative he could manage with his face pressed against the glass.

Mom looked back at me, excitement in her violet-blue eyes. "Axel, do you see it?"

She looked really happy, and I knew that if I put her out of that mood, she'd rip my tongue out, so I glanced over out the window and looked for it. "You mean that greenish-yellow-coloured dump over there with the broken windows that's been egged and has the 'For Sale' sign beneath all the graffiti?"

Mom's eyes narrowed. Oops, maybe I said the wrong thing…?

But, maybe not, because her eyes brightened and she smiled that same scary smile that made her look like a chainsaw-murderer. She nodded energetically, "Yes, that's it!" she said exuberantly. "I remember; that's the place where they first invented the sea-salt ice cream flavour!" She laughed loudly, "salty and sweet!"

Reno made a humming sound of recognition against the window. "You mean those blue popsicle sticks that taste like semen?"

I sniggered. "Of course, _you_ know what semen tastes like…"

"Shut up, cocksucker!" Reno shouted, jumping up and hitting his head on the roof of the Mom-mobile.

"Ehhhh? I think we have a misunderstanding, brother-dearest," I said with an innocent, wide-eyed look. "After all, you're the one who knows what semen tastes like, not me…"

"Fuck you!"

"No, no, no," I said with a grin, "fuck you."

"Axel, when I get back there, I'll—"

"Reno, shut your face," Mom said in a rather uninterested way. She shoved him back in his seat and accelerated the car through a perilous jam, driving on the wrong side of the road and getting cussed out—and cussing other people out—in four different languages.

"So, whatever happened to that ice cream shop?" I asked idly, looking to bring up the conversation, again. "Sea-salt ice cream is a pretty popular flavour in Twilight Town…"

Reno clicked his tongue. "That's 'cause all the queers live there."

I cackled. "Of course, _you_ know that…"

"Shut up!"

"Reno, what happened to you being mature?" Mom muttered with a sigh as she grabbed his shirt collar in her iron grip to keep him from killing me. She glanced over at me and nodded. "Twilight Town did take the flavour a lot better than Hollow Bastion—"

"Gee, I wonder why, _Reno_…" I sang.

Mom glared at me. "Don't make me sic Reno on you, Axel," she warned. When I didn't make any further provocations at my fuming brother, she continued with her story. "Anyway, Hollow Bastion didn't really take to the flavour, and since the guy in charge was too cheap to buy any ingredients but table salt and sugar, that was the only flavour he could make. So, he ended up having to sell the joint."

Reno, who had calmed down considerably, looked surprised at this. "Why hasn't anyone bought it? The real estate isn't bad."

"I'm not really sure why," Mom admitted. "I think it was because the shop itself was made from those yellow bricks."

I blanched. "They wouldn't buy it just because it was a little ugly?"

Mom raised her eyebrows. "Axel, have you seen that place? That building is _hella_ ugly…"

"God, Mom," Reno groaned, "you're so shallow."

"Hey!" Mom pouted, putting on an expression of false-hurt. Then, she leered. "I married your father, didn't I?"

Mom and Dad got a divorce a number of years back, like when I was four. See, Dad was one of the head honchos at the Shinra Electric Power Company in Midgar, and instead of being married to Mom, it was like he was married to his job.

Mom eventually got pissed off with his neglect with being a husband and father and told him to take a hike. The custody of me 'n Reno obviously resulted with her winning, and she took on the job of being a very crazed single mom.

I don't think anyone else could have done a better job.

"Mom, I love you," I said adoringly.

"Are you high?"

Seriously. I love this woman.

"Hey, Ma," Reno said, pointing out his window, "is that the university campus?"

Mom craned her neck over to get a better view. "Yeah, that's Hollow Bastion University," she confirmed. "Good ol' HBU."

I leaned over the violet suitcase to get a better look at what he was pointing at. The university campus was made up of a small cluster of squat buildings in a variety of different colours and shapes. It honestly looked like the architect had been some dysfunctional four year old, the whole place looked like a bunch of precariously stacked building blocks.

Reno apparently shared my sentiments. "Do they have a thing for the arts or something?" he asked.

Mom looked rather surprised at this question. "Why would you think that?" she wondered aloud.

Gee, maybe because it looks like a bad attempt at modern art?

"I dunno," Reno said slowly—probably afraid of upsetting Mom. Wuss. "I was just wondering…"

Mom raised an eyebrow and shook her head. "No… It's actually a wonderful school to get into if you want to study the sciences. The University of Twilight Town or the Curly Hill College are where you go for the arts." She paused for a moment. "Although, Atlantica School of Music is the best for music and the performing arts, and—"

"God, Ma, I didn't ask for a dissertation on all the colleges on this side of the planet. Geez." Reno rolled his eyes, and Mom narrowed hers.

"Hey, Reno," I said suddenly. "Are you still gonna apply for business at Junon College, like Dad wanted?"

Reno blinked, apparently surprised. "I haven't thought about it, actually," he mumbled sheepishly. "I don't think so, though…" He shrugged. "I never was one for business. I guess he just wanted me to work at Shinra with him."

Mom snorted. "He'd have us all living there, if he could," she muttered caustically.

Reno laughed. "But, nah. I think I'll go into the sciences or something." He grinned at me. "I've always wanted to study under Ansem Weiss," he said brightly.

Mom giggled. "Don't blow yourself up in the process."

I smirked at this. "He'll be blowing _something_, all right…"

"Shut your face, fucker!" Reno raged.

"Be nice to your brother," Mom scolded us at the same time.

"Yeah," Reno snickered as he relaxed. "You don't hear me making fun of your fruity aspiration to write a book."

I smiled pleasantly at him. "Fuck you."

"Ha, you wish."

"Ma," I said loudly, "Reno's being a whore."

"Hey!" Reno shouted. "I'm not even half the whore you are!" he retorted.

To this, I laughed. "Ha! The joke's on you!" I exclaimed. "I'm not a whore, I'm a slut! It's totally different. We don't get paid."

Mom groaned and mournfully looked up at the sky through the moon roof. "Lord," she said sombrely, "what did I do to deserve this?"

"Geez, Ma," Reno laughed, "You're the one who brought it upon yourself. You put it quite plainly: you married Dad."

Mom sniggered in agreement.

Another two hours later—fucking traffic—had us driving through some little suburb. I think. I wasn't really paying attention. I was too busy playing _Castle Soul: String of Recollections_ on my special limited-edition _Castle Soul_ GBA to really notice. (C'mon, how many of you guys have played _Castle Soul_? You all know it's fucking addicting. Seriously, what is it with Circle-Enix and their freakishly amazing games? I mean, _damn_, I thought I'd seen it all with those _Last Dream_ games… Damn those insanely genius bastards. Damn them.)

"Are we there, yet?" I asked, my eyes basically glued to the tiny screen as a tiny, pixelated Miyu beat the shit out of a tiny, pixelated Lamuria.

"Almost," Mom replied. "We've got about ten more minutes. Look, we've just entered our new town. See, boys? Welcome to Radiant Garden." I think she must have made some grand, sweeping gesture, but like I said, I wasn't really watching.

Reno chuckled. "What a fruity name…" I heard him snort as tiny!Lamuria wounded tiny!Miyu's HP with a barrage of speck-like rose thorns. Stupid pink-haired bastard.

Suddenly, Mom's cellphone hit me right on the head, bounced off, and rolled under the duffle on the floor. I quickly paused the game and clutched at the quickly-forming bump on my head. "Ouch, goddammit! What the hell was that for, Mom?!" I griped.

Reno was smirking from his seat. "Weren't you paying attention, Ass-el?" he drawled.

"Don't call me that, bitch." God. He never let that one mispronunciation go! I was two!!

"Axel," Mom said, "I need directions on how to get to our house from here." She was actually paying attention to the street names, too. This is how I knew she was being serious.

"So? What am I supposed to do about that? I've never been here before," I said blankly, just wanting to get back to my game. Geez, they were screwing up my time…

"You're such a nincompoop," Reno muttered. "Obviously she wants you to call that friend of hers."

I blinked. "Friend?" I gave Mom an appalled look. "I didn't know you have friends!"

Mom glowered at me. "Don't make me kill you."

I laughed uneasily and sank back into my seat again, reaching over with an arm to find her phone. When I finally fished it out from beneath the duffle and between the empty packets of pocky, I flipped it open. "Who do I call?"

"Look for Sora Quirke," Mom said immediately. "He's my childhood friend from back on the island. It's quite a coincidence that his cell number is still the same… God, we haven't even caught up yet—oh, I'm just surprised that he actually moved out here…" She shrugged. "I guess I always expected him to stay out there on that play island, you know? Hollow Bastion always seemed like something Riku would do, not Sora—"

"Mom, it's nice that you're trying to prove to us that you actually did have a social life, but, um, yeah. It's not," I said pointedly.

Mom gave me the finger.

I gave her a scrutinising look. "Nice," I said flatly. "But, seriously, what do I ask?"

"Tell him I'm coming to the intersection of Bailey and Great Crest, heading east. We're moving in just next door to him, so he should be able to direct us."

"Okay." I flipped through her address book until I came upon Sora Quirke—heheh, funny name…—and I hit the call button for his home number. After two rings, the phone was picked up.

"Hello?"

I almost hung up. The voice on the other line sounded like that of a teenager, not some old guy like Mom.

"Is this some kind of prank call?" the voice on the other end asked sourly, "because if it is, you guys can just go and screw yourselves, I'm not laughing."

Ouch. Maybe this was a teenager.

"Erm," I said.

"What?" the voice asked grumpily. "Can I hang up now?"

"No! No!" I cried hysterically, causing Reno to laugh at me. "This is Kairi van Alderliesten! I'm a friend of Sora Quirke!"

There was a moment of silence on the other end, then, "I'm pretty sure that Pop said Kairi was a _girl_, not some teenaged boy with a cracking voice."

"Aw, don't be mean…" I whined.

The voice scoffed. "Whatever. Who the hell are you?"

"I'm…uhh…uhh…" Shit! What the hell's my name?!

The voice had apparently had it. "Okay, that's it, fucker. I'm hanging up—" There was a brief scuffling sound, then a soft conversation on his end of the line. But, oddly, the conversation was taking place between the same person. I mean, it was the same voice and everything…

"Don't be so rude, man!…God, can't you see this just some joke?…No, Pop did say the Van Alderliesten's were moving in… So?…So, maybe this is one of Kairi's sons? Pop did say she had two…Che, do what you like, man. I'm outta here…Fine. I'll talk to him. Hello?"

I jumped when I realised that the last bit was directed at me. "Erm, hi," I said lamely. "Please don't hang up."

"Don't worry, man," the voice laughed and I couldn't help but feel confused. Seriously, talk about a split personality. "Sorry about him…he's kinda pissy today. He had some fight with his boyfriend or something…" The voice trailed off, and left me blinking stupidly and trying to digest what I'd just heard. My mind was kind of scrambled. All that I was registering was: _Boyfriend?_ and _What?_ and _Why the hell was he talking about himself in third person?_ and _The neighbour's kid is gay? Sick. Reno—that poor, sex-depraved ass—can finally get some!_

"Hey," the voice called out, "you still there?"

"Uh, yeah." I cleared my throat hastily. "This is Axel van Alderliesten. I'm one of Kairi's sons."

The voice laughed, and I felt shivers shoot down my neck. Geez. What a scary bastard. "Yeah, I kinda figured," he said pleasantly. "So, what's up? Y'know, my Pop did say that you guys were coming. Heh, he's been bouncing off the walls all day…"

"Your pop?" I asked dumbly.

(Mom spun around and gave me an astonished look. "Sora has kids?!" she shrieked.)

"Yeah! Heh, he's been gushing about how it's been _so_ long since he's seen Kairi, and blah, blah, blah…" He laughed again.

"Eh heh…your pop?" I said unintelligently.

The voice seemed to find this amusing. "Yeah. Sora," he explained obviously.

"Oh, ha. I knew that." God, I'm such a_ loser_!

"I'm sure you did," the voice chuckled.

I laughed awkwardly, ignoring the gagging noises Reno was making in the passenger seat.

"So, what can I help you with, Axel?" the voice asked.

_Oh_. That's right. I completely forgot.

"Uh, yeah," I said. "We need directions to your house. We're moving in next door."

"Sick!" the voice exclaimed. "That'll be great! Dude, you guys are the one's moving into Ursula's—that witch's—house?"

"I guess…?" Oh. My. God. Was it _not_ possible to make a total fool of myself with this guy? I sounded like such a retard… (Insert face-palm.)

"Sure, man, it's no problem. Where are you guys?"

"Uh…" I shot a helpless look at Reno and he rolled his eyes.

"Intersection of Bailey and Great Crest, douche," he drawled.

"We're at the intersection of Bailey and Great Crest," I told the voice while giving Reno the finger.

The voice hummed. "You guys are really close," he commented. "Heading east, right?"

I nodded, than felt like an idiot, because he obviously couldn't see me nod. "Yeah."

"Okay, keep following the Bailey for about half a mile, then make a left at the stoplight onto Postern."

"Okay," I said, and I repeated the instructions for Mom.

"Gotcha," Mom said with a thumbs up sign as she sped down the road and through the red-light, leading us into a small town.

"'Kay," I said to the voice. "We're on Postern."

"Really?" he sounded surprised. "That was fast…" he mused. "It should've taken you guys at good five minutes…"

I laughed awkwardly. "My Mom's a very special driver," I said, ducking as an empty Moonbucks cup went hurtling at me from the driver's seat.

The voice 'ahh'ed in understanding. "So's my Pop," he said sympathetically. "Anyway, follow Postern for two miles, then make a right turn onto High Tower. From High Tower, just go straight for five miles until you hit the library."

I said 'okay' and reiterated the instructions for Mom.

"So," the voice said, "why're you guys moving out here, anyway?" he asked curiously.

I blinked. I hadn't expected small talk. "Oh, well, Mom wanted to get us out of Midgar."

"Why? Midgar is fucking awesome." He sounded surprised.

I laughed. "I _know_," I said loudly. "But, y'know, bad neighbourhood, I guess," I said as I ducked another coffee cup.

"That would make sense," the voice said slowly. "But, the neighbourhood here is kinda crazy, too."

This surprised me. "Really? How's that?"

"Well, for one thing, the teachers at the high school are totally cracked, and—"

A third Styrofoam coffee cup sailed through the air, this one actually hitting its target. "Hang on, dude, I think my mom wants to tell me something," I told the voice. I leaned over the driver's seat to give Mom an annoyed look. "What?" I asked grumpily.

Mom glared at me, then jabbed a finger at a nearby building. The library. Apparently, we'd made seven miles in a record time of one and a half minutes.

"Hey, man," I said, "we're at the library."

The voice laughed at this. "Why am I not surprised?"

I snorted. "What now?"

"There should be an intersection coming up in half a mile, you see it?"

I was gonna squint in the distance to find it, but I found that we were already on it. "Yeah, we're on it," I said lamely.

"Your mom is a brilliant driver…" he mused. "Turn right onto Castle Gates and keep going straight until you see Kingdom High School. Rising Falls is the left turn immediately after that, and you guys are the light yellow house in the first cul-de-sac on your right."

We ended up on a road with a couple of schools—the Kingdom Campus, I guess. "Hey, which one is the high school?" I asked. "There're like five schools and a synagogue here …"

He let out a rather dejected sigh. "The high school is the one covered in all the T.P."

"T.P.? But it's July!"

"KHS is always covered in toilet paper," he explained despondently.

I blinked at the phone, but told Mom to 'make a left after the school that's been pwn'd.' After turning into the cul-de-sac, we landed in a quiet area with five pale, sugary-coloured houses—blue, violet, pink, yellow, and white. Mom pulled us into the driveway of the yellow house, which was the first one on the right, and killed the ignition of the Mom-mobile. Mom and Reno jumped out of the car and began to do overenthusiastic stretches and jumping jacks. I sank in my seat. God, my family is weird.

"Oh," the voice said, "I think I see you guys. You just pulled in, right?"

"Yeah," I said, peering out my window over at the white house next door. Gauzy white curtains with yellow polka-dots hung from all the windows on the ground floor, but on the second floor, two windows facing our house had black and white chequered curtains. I got the vibe that the guy I was talking to was in the room with the chequered curtains.

"Wow," the voice was saying, "your Mom's car is in great shape, considering her driving…is it an Oathkeeper?"

I grinned. "Yup," I said. "Same car she got when she was eighteen."

The voice whistled. "That's a beautiful car," he said wistfully. "My Pop's car is a Gummi, and it's a piece of—" he stopped in mid-sentence to…talk to himself, again.

"Dude, the new neighbours are here. Dad says we gotta go downstairs and help Naminé get the jello mould and shit ready…Oh, okay. Yeah, I figured. I just saw them pull up…Well, get off the phone. Dad is gonna be a little late from work, so Pop said for us to go on without him…Yeah, yeah. Tell him I'll be right down…—Hey, Axel?"

I jumped. "Yeah?"

"I gotta go, okay? Dad wants me to go down and help with shit. But we'll be coming by in a few, so I'll see you then," he said, sounding reluctant.

"No problem," I said lightly, watching Reno with amusement as he opened the trunk door and start dragging suitcases out. "And thanks for the directions, man. Couldn't have done it without you."

"Haha, no problem," he said cheerfully.

"See you, then."

"Later." And he hung up.

(It was only twenty minutes later that it occurred to me that I didn't even know who I'd been speaking to.)

Mom, who had just finished doing toe-touches, bounded up to the car and opened my door. Since I'd been leaning against the door, I flopped out onto Mom, who staggered beneath my weight as she shoved me back inside. "Axel," she barked, "stop being a lazy-ass and help your brother move things inside! We got here about an hour earlier than the moving van, so I want us to get everything inside the Mom-mobile out and into the house before they can get there."

I groaned in protest. "Do we _have_ to?"

Mom smacked me upside my head. "Yes, you lazy bum! Now get out of my car!"

I slowly slipped out of the seat, only to collapse dramatically on the lawn. "But, _Mom_, I'm fucking tired…"

Mom ignored my complaints, unceremoniously walked over me, and bounced to the front door, where she began fiddling with the keys. "C'mon, boys!" she exclaimed as she threw open the door and ran inside. "Let's fight over bedrooms!"

I continued lying on the grass, and Reno, who was stumbling under the weight of a box of Mom's clothes, toed me in my side. "Dude," he said, "C'mon, before she decides we have to share a room."

_That_ got me moving. I charged in after Mom, leaving my brother outside in the dust to bring all our shit inside.

The house was fairly roomy, and I was already busy planning out where all our furniture and everything was gonna go. Like, I could totally picture our ratty old couch sitting in the living room with the television and PS2 opposite it and the remote control seated faithfully on the coffee table, which would be right between the right side of the couch and Mom's plush chair. The thick white carpet would be completely covered with coffee stains—Mom's a terrible addict—and those coffee stains would all be covered up with layers and layers of magazines and pocky boxes and wrappers and stuff.

Ha. This place would be home in no time.

I stomped upstairs and was about to duck into the first bedroom when Mom slammed the door on my face. "I call this room!" she shouted from the inside. "I want my own bathroom. You two pigs can share the other one."

I rolled my eyes and opened the next door. This was the bathroom me and Reno were expected to share. And, dude, it was freaking puny. I'll bet you anything that Reno was gonna hog it, he being the girl he is.

There was a linen closet opposite the bathroom and another door next to the bathroom. This one was obviously a bedroom, but the window view sucked. I sure as hell didn't want to get a loverly view of the road. Geez. Across from this room was another bedroom, but the view from here wasn't much better, to be honest. It got the back view of our house, showing our totally dead backyard. So freaky looking. I'd be afraid of one of those trees coming to life and killing me in the middle of the night.

This lead me to the one choice of the last bedroom in the hallway, this one had a pretty dry view, too. It was overlooking the slightly greener side yard, and from here, if I looked straight ahead, I got a perfect view of the window with the chequered curtains.

Reno stumbled into the room a minute after I did and looked around. "I want this one," he said after glancing out the window.

I frowned at him. "Screw you, I'm taking this one. I found it first."

Reno pouted at me. "But all the other ones have shitty views!" he complained. "Have you seen that one of the backyard? It's fucking scary!"

I raised my eyebrows. "Then take the one that has the front view," I said logically.

He glared at me, his flaming red eyebrows knitting together. "Hell, that's hardly an improvement," he argued. "I'd feel so paranoid, like it's my job to watch who's entering the cul-de-sac and shit."

I groaned and began to push him out of the room. "Shut the hell up and deal," I drawled, steering him into the room with the front view, completely ignoring his cries of objection.

He spun around and gave me an angry look once we were in his room. "Goddammit, Axel!" he griped. "Why the hell do you get everything you want?"

I was about to answer, but someone else took the liberty of doing so.

"Because he's the baby of the family," Mom explained obviously, poking her head into the room. She wandered around Reno's room, opening the closet and checking its space. "Geez," she muttered, "this is a small closet."

"It doesn't matter," I guffawed, "Reno doesn't hide in his closet anymore."

Reno socked me in the stomach, and I let out a grunt of pain. Mom chose to ignore this brief exchange.

"It's just as well," she was saying, "you have drawers you can use…"

Then the doorbell rang. Mom looked incredibly excited by this.

"Those must be some of the neighbours!" she squealed. "I wonder if it's Sora!" she shot down the stairs. "Get down here, boys!" she yelled over her shoulder.

Me and Reno exchanged annoyed looks with each other, but relented and headed down to greet whoever was at the door. When we landed in the foyer, a scrawny, very harassed looking guy around my age with rose-coloured hair and an old plump woman in a pink floral dress—probably his grandma—were standing in the front doorway of the house, the guy clutching a heavenly-smelling, heart-shaped apple pie in his hands like it was his lifeline.

Mom excitedly waved us over. "Look, boys," she gushed, talking a mile a minute, "Mrs. Færie and her grandnephew, Marluxia, baked us a pie!"

"We-we-welcome to Radiant Garden…" Marluxia stammered, face flushing a shade of pink that matched his hair.

Mom cooed. "Isn't that _precious_?" She turned to Mrs. Færie and gave the old woman an elated grin. "Thank you two so much for the pie."

"It's no problem at all!" Mrs. Færie let out a throaty sort of laugh. "And, please, call me Flora, dearie," she said warmly. She gave Mom a gentle smile, "Why don't we cut ourselves a slice in the kitchen, hmm?" When Mom nodded enthusiastically and began to lead her away, Flora took the pie from her grandnephew and followed Mom away, saying "Now tell me, Kairi, what brings you to Radiant Garden?"

Marluxia shifted his weight from foot to foot as he watched us awkwardly. "H-hey," he said dumbly, his blue eyes nervously flickering from me to Reno.

Reno nodded at him. "Sup?"

"Did you just say 'sup' to me?" Marluxia looked scandalised.

I laughed at Reno's sulky expression and hopped down the last step to meet the guy. "Hey," I said brightly. "I'm Axel, and that ugly jackass over there is my older brother, Reno."

Reno gave me the finger.

Marluxia wrinkled his nose in distaste at Reno, then smiled tentatively at me. "Marluxia Rosenfeld," he said shyly, extending a hand. When I shook it, his smile grew. "Nice to meet you, Axel."

I grinned broadly—haha, the guy liked me more than Reno! Axel : 1, Reno : 0.

"Sorry about Great Aunt Flo," Marluxia said when he released my hand. He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "She's nice, but only in small quantities," he said with a laugh. "She's kind of overbearing at times."

"Yeah," Reno said in a desperate attempt to get into our conversation. "So's our mom."

"So are you, apparently," Marluxia said in an overly blasé voice as he flipped some of his hair in an overtly feminine way. He put his hands on his hips and turned to regard me with a raised eyebrow. "Is he always this unbearable, or am I just lucky?"

I snickered and slung an arm around his thin shoulders. "Y'know, Marluxia," I said happily, relishing the aggravated look on Reno's face, "I think we're gonna get along just fine."

Marluxia and his Great Aunt Flo—apparently the eldest sister of his grandma on his mom's side—hung around for little over half an hour, but in that time, I managed to gain a brief synopsis on the guy. (Reno, on the other hand, couldn't even get a single word out of the guy that wasn't laced with poison.)

He had an older sister named Aurora who'd fallen into a coma some time ago, back when he'd been seven, and she still had yet to wake up, nine years later. In order to help his parents out, his mother's mother and her two sisters, Flora and Merriweather, moved in to help take care of him, since his dad was a very successful horticulturist studying with Ansem Weiss, and because his mom ran her own flower shop that was constantly understaffed—the only people who worked there consistently were his Great Aunt Flo and some chick named Alice who, according to Marluxia, needed to stop doing mushrooms once in a while. After he'd gotten his worker's permit, he'd taken to helping his mom out at the shop—a quaint place on Postern called Golden Afternoon.

He told me that he wanted to be a horticulturist himself, and that he had plans to apply at HBU for college. He was a pretty ambitious guy, actually. He wanted to set up his own labs and everything. He said he had issues working under a figurehead's authority. I just took this to mean he had a control freak complex.

He was also one of those artsy-fartsy kind of guys. He liked dance and choreography, which, _of course_, lead Reno to ask the dude if he was gay or not. Marluxia, I'm very pleased to say, was not the least bit rattled by this and proudly said he was bi. This was an answer that I was totally cool with, too. (Granted, I also warned him to watch out for Reno, that stupid, horny bastard. Marluxia simply replied that Reno wasn't his type, something that, to my amusement, greatly insulted my idiotic brother.)

He lived in the light pink house across the street from us. It was a cute thing, picturesque, really, and covered in tons and tons of rose bushes and sporting a really elaborate and well-maintained garden. Marluxia referred to the garden as his 'baby.' (He also offered to lend us a hand with taming our own weed of a lawn and garden. I told him I'd take him up on that offer.)

He was in the same grade as me, so he figured that even if we didn't get to see much of each other over the course of summer, we'd definitely see each other in school.

He'd been just about to tell us about the school, when Great Aunt Flo came bustling in and kicked him out, saying that they had to get dinner ready and that "Sweetie, really, you know as well as I that Great Aunt Merriweather is certainly not very merry when she's denied her supper." Marluxia was then forced to say goodbye to me as he got railed on by his grandaunt for having grass and dirt stains on his jeans and leaves and twigs hanging out of the hood of his black sweatshirt.

I went into the kitchen after I closed the door, 'cause I wanted some of that pie. When I walked into the kitchen, Mom was exploring the cabinet space, and the pie tin was sitting on the countertop. Empty.

Truthfully, I was kinda pissed off. That pie had smelled fucking good.

Reno, who'd followed me in, let out a groan of dismay. "_Ma_!!" he complained, "You fricking ate the whole thing?!"

Mom gave him a nasty look. "So what if I did?" she challenged, straightening to her fullest height—which really wasn't that much. Reno was a good foot taller than her.

Reno crossed his arms and sulked. "God, you suck!" he muttered.

Mom started yelling back at him, and the two got so involved in their argument that they didn't hear the doorbell ring. I looked back and forth at my screaming family before I elected to go and answer the door, seeing as neither of them looked to be going over to do that anytime soon. I peered through the peephole in the door and nearly jumped out of my socks when I saw the grossly distorted image of a bluish-green eye that was staring back at me.

I opened the door, my heart still thumping in my chest. "Hello?"

"Hiya!" two voices shouted at me in unison.

I winced slightly at the noise as I looked over the three people standing in the doorway. There were two guys who both looked my age and a girl who looked a little younger. One of the guys—the one who hadn't screamed out a greeting—was a little on the shorter side, and his posture was eerily perfect. His silvery-blue bangs hung carefully over his right eye, and each strand looked like it had been meticulously set into place. His left eye was a startling bright colour of cobalt, and although his eye was wide open and piercingly awake, his bruised eyelids betrayed lack of sleep. He gave me a blank look before sticking his hand out rigidly.

"Welcome to Rising Falls," he said languidly as I shook his hand. "I am Zexion Grzeskiewicz—"

"God, Zex," the other boy said with a dramatic roll of his bottle green eyes. "How the heck do you deal with saying your last name? It's _sooo_ freaking long…" He made a vague gesture with his hands and ignored the disgruntled look from Zexion. "I'm Demyx McNamara," he said excitedly as he tore my hand from Zexion's handshake and shook it animatedly.

"Easy there, Demyx," the girl said with a giggle, "you might dislocate his arm from his shoulder."

Zexion made a grunt of agreement and Demyx released me.

"Sorry about that, dude," he said, laughing sheepishly. Demyx had a kind of musical laugh. I liked it. It wasn't the annoying kind of snicker, like Reno's.

Demyx and the girl both bore a similar resemblance, so I figured they were siblings, seeing as they had the same blue-green eyes and smile—although, Demyx's was admittedly more mischievous than the girl's. And whereas Demyx's sand-coloured hair was gelled up into some weird blend of a mullet and a Mohawk, the girl's was tied into a ponytail and pinned up with a bazillion barrettes and hair clips with sparkles and stars and hearts and smiley faces adorning them. Actually, the two of them were pretty bizarre looking.

"Anyway," the girl said, smiling brightly, "I'm Rikku. I'm Demyx's sister."

Ha. Figures.

"Zexion lives in the purple house, and me 'n Rikku live in the blue house," Demyx told me with an exaggerated point at the violet house on the other side of the white house and at the blue house next to Marluxia's. "We also have a younger brother and a younger sister, but Arthur and Marlene are at summer camp," Demyx added, digging deep into his sweatpants' pockets for something. "Got it!" He fished out a wallet and held it triumphantly over his head.

Rikku rolled her eyes. "Sheesh, Brother," she muttered, "you act like Grandpa Merlin with your pictures…"

Demyx pouted at her. "No, I don't!" he argued childishly as he flipped his wallet open, causing a link of small, plastic-covered photographs to fall from it. He quickly skimmed down the link before showing me a picture. "Here we are," he said proudly. "The ones who aren't me and Rikku are Arthur and Marlene."

I looked at the picture and grinned slightly. Four children with varying shades of golden-brown hair were making weird faces at the camera. Demyx and Rikku stood out with their strange hair, and the other two looked way more normal. Arthur looked like a quiet and shy sort of kid, while Marlene—the only one with dark hair—looked like a very outspoken and sweet kid.

"Aren't they _cute_?" Demyx fussed with a wide smile.

Zexion groaned and rubbed his forehead tiredly. Rikku reached around Demyx to pat him sympathetically on the back.

I grinned at this and handed Demyx back the picture. "Very cute," I said to him, which only made him smile some more.

"I have lots of other pictures, too, see?" Demyx dug further into his pocket and pulled out a tiny photo album.

I shot Zexion and Rikku alarmed looks, and Zexion nodded at her. Rikku snatched the album from her brother and gave him a reproving sort of look.

"Brother," she chided, "Artie is gonna be pissed at you if you keep showing people pictures of him…"

Demyx reluctantly agreed and pocketed the photos. Zexion let out a barely audible sigh of relief.

"So…" Zexion glanced back up at me. "I don't believe you told us your name…"

I laughed awkwardly. "That's right. Sorry. I'm Axel van Alderliesten."

"Ax-el…" Rikku rolled my name around her mouth, as if tasting it. She grinned. "Cool name," she said to no one in particular.

"Do you have any siblings?" Demyx asked curiously, his eyes shining.

Zexion coughed in a way that sounded suspiciously like he'd said 'say "no."'

"I have a brother," I replied, taking note of the distraught look Zexion shot me.

"Really?" Demyx bounced around excitedly on the balls of his feet. "Older or younger? I love children…"

Rikku snickered. "Careful there, Dem," she crowed, "you'll end up growing up to be a paedophile or something…"

Demyx looked horrified at such a suggestion. "What kind of asshole would violate a child?!" he raged, clenching his hands in fists. "How horrible!"

Zexion ignored Demyx's outburst and looked at me interestedly. "So? Older or younger?" he asked.

"Older," I clarified. "And he's an idiot."

Rikku giggled. "Aren't they all?" she joked, giving Demyx a pointed look. Demyx gave her a look of surprise and the corners of Zexion's lips quirked slightly.

"What about you?" I asked Zexion. He looked kinda surprised that I'd asked him such a question.

"I'm adopted," he replied stiffly, casting his eyes away from us.

"That doesn't answer his question," Demyx cut in, giving Zexion a questioning glance. His eyes moved back to me. "Zex has a ten year old brother named Denzel," Demyx said. "Also adopted."

Zexion continued to look off at our scraggly lawn, not saying anything. Demyx furrowed his brow and gave the guy an awkward pat on the back.

"So, um, we're just here to say hello and to welcome you to Radiant Garden," Rikku said hurriedly, trying to change the subject.

I smiled a little at her. "Thanks," I said. "We just moved in from Junon, Midgar."

Zexion looked up. "I'm from Midgar," he said slowly.

"Which part?" I asked.

Zexion's expression turned slightly sour. "Sector Five," he muttered.

Ooh. The slums.

From there, the conversation turned awkward again.

"So…um…" Demyx turned to his sister, eyes wide. I guessed he was desperate to put Zexion out of his mood.

"Why'd you move?" Rikku quickly asked.

Demyx gave her a very theatrical wink, and she rolled her eyes.

"Uh…my Mom just wanted a change from the city life," I said blankly.

Zexion let out a caustic snort. "Probably a good idea," he mumbled, glancing back over at me. "Before that geostigma epidemic leaves the slums, I mean."

Demyx winced. "Relax, Zex," he said carefully.

"Whatever." Zexion cracked his neck and rolled up his left long-sleeve to check his watch. His left eye flickered over to Demyx. "It's four o'clock. We have to get going if we're going to pick up Denzel and your siblings from camp on time," he said softly.

Rikku nodded and rolled her eyes. "Good idea. The last time we were late, Denzel threw such a stink…"

Demyx shuddered. "No kidding." He turned back to me and gave me an apologetic look. "Sorry, dude," he said. "We really didn't get to talk much, eh?"

I shrugged. "It's cool. I'll end up seeing you guys around, right?"

He nodded enthusiastically. "Of course," he said merrily. "You guys should come by for dinner some time. We always make too much food, anyway—"

Rikku smacked him on the arm and started dragging him away. "See you around, Axel!" she called over her shoulder as she yanked Demyx down in the direction of the schools.

Zexion followed them after giving me a last look. "See you," he said lifelessly before hurrying to catch up to the McNamara siblings.

As I was shouting 'later!' at them, Reno came up behind me, looking thoroughly beaten up from his verbal war with Mom.

"More neighbours?" he asked flatly, staring off at the trio.

"Yeah," I replied. "One's from the fifth sector of Midgar," I added vaguely.

"Ouch."

"Yeah, that's what I thought, too."

(I had the gut feeling that Zexion had lost his parents to geostigma, but I didn't have the heart to ask him.)

"Any of those guys Sora?" Reno randomly asked me, eyes curious.

I shook my head. "Nope. Those were the guys who live in the blue and purple houses."

Reno nodded and glanced over at the white house next door. "When d'you think they'll come by?"

"I dunno. Probably sometime—"

The front door of the white house suddenly flew open and two blonds, one guy and one girl, waved at us and jogged over, the girl carefully holding a swaying yellow jello mould in her hands.

"—soon…" my voice died away as the pair cut across the side lawn and approached us. The girl smiled shyly and thrust the jello at me. The thing itself jiggled freakily, but the yellow star-shaped fruit inside never moved. It was creepy.

"Welcome to our neighbourhood," she said softly, her periwinkle eyes warm as she watched me gingerly take the jello and hand it to Reno. "I'm Naminé Seelenfreund-Quirke, and this is my brother." She gestured to the guy with her, and he made a careless sort of wave.

"Hey," he said uninterestedly. I could tell immediately from the voice that this was the guy I'd been talking to on the phone. I hoped he was still in a good mood.

Naminé nudged him lightly in the ribs. "Be nice," she said patiently. Her brother raised an eyebrow at her and scoffed. Naminé glanced back at us and tugged a little nervously on the hem of her white t-shirt. "Sorry about him," she said softly, ignoring the dirty look she got from him. "He just got into a fight with his boyfriend the other day, and—"

Reno sniggered, which drew in the blond guy's sharp blue eyes. "_What_?" he asked viciously, eyes narrowing. "Got a problem with gays?"

Reno sputtered a negative and I quickly elbowed him in the jaw.

"Ignore him, he's an idiot," I said with a hasty grin at the guy. Dude, he looked _pissed_…

"I wouldn't doubt it," came the crass response. He gave Reno an unimpressed once-over. "He looks like one, too." Naminé frowned reprovingly at him.

"Be nice," she said pleadingly.

He glared at her. "I don't have to listen to you."

Damn, he's in an ugly mood again…

"So," he said, fixing me and Reno with acid stares that could curdle milk. "Which one of you buffoons is the one who called the house?"

Reno jabbed a thumb in my direction. "He's the buffoon," he replied mutinously.

I twitched. Fucking traitor.

The blond spawn from hell gave me a poisonous scowl. "I hope you die a slow, painful, and humiliating death," he snarled.

Reno grinned behind his hand. "I think I'm gonna like this guy," I heard him snicker.

Naminé swatted her Satan Spawn brother on the shoulder. "Be nice," she said again, this time a little more forcefully.

"Um," I strove to think of a more pleasant conversation. "So, uh, when is Sora coming over?" I asked lamely.

Naminé glanced back over at the house. "Pop'll be coming by any minute," she replied. "I imagine he's just getting himself prepped for seeing your mother." She smiled. "He's so excited. They apparently haven't really spoken in roughly twenty years. He probably has a lot to tell your mom."

I nodded in agreement as I led them inside, leaving the door open for Sora to come through. "Yeah, Mom didn't even know he'd gotten married and had kids."

Naminé and her brother exchanged odd looks before turning back to me and Reno. Naminé looked like she wanted to say something, but got interrupted by Mom's squealing.

"Oh my God!" she cried out in delight, practically pouncing on them. "You two must be Sora's kids!" she gushed, pinching their cheeks. "You look _just_ like him!" she ranted as she took in the guy's face. "Except for all that blond hair, that is… So, who'd Sora marry? Hmm? _Hmm_? Who was the lucky girl?"

The Satan Spawn was about to reply when there was a knocking sound on the doorframe. We turned to see a small dark-haired guy with a grin the size of Mom's ass standing in the doorway, waving at us erratically.

"Pop!" Naminé and Satan Spawn said at the same time.

I gawked. Reno gawked. Hell, even Mom gawked, but not for very long, because she went flying over to him and practically covered him in her massive hug

"Sora!!" she cried, bouncing up and down breathlessly.

"Kairi!!" he cried, bouncing up and down with her.

"_Omigawd_," Mom shrieked, "it's been, like, _forever_! _Omigawd_!!"

Sora, who admittedly looked my age, just went on hopping up and down and screaming with Mom. "_Omigawd_, Kairi!" he wailed. "You have _kids_!!"

"_Omigawd_, Sora!!" Mom screamed back. "So do you!!"

Me and Reno kinda watched this exchange with feelings that one might experience while watching a train crash. This actually kinda _was_ like watching a train crash, now that I think about it. I mean, those two nuts were so goddamn _loud_ for people talking less than a foot away from each other. And all the jumping around…sheesh. You'd think they were teenaged girls or something.

I figured this was typical behaviour of Sora. I mean, his kids were just kind of watching like this was nothing new. Although, I gotta admit, Satan Spawn looked pretty fucking mortified. (Not that I can blame him. I was feeling pretty sick to my stomach myself.)

They finally stopped bouncing around and settled for seeing who could pinch the other's cheeks harder. Mom won. It was close, though.

"Shit, Sora," Mom was saying as she pulled on his cheeks. "You haven't aged a fucking day since I left!"

Sora let out a hearty stream of laughter. "Your language has really changed, though! You used to hit Riku for cursing!" he said in an amazingly clear voice for someone whose face was being pulled in seven different directions at once.

Mom laughed loudly and pinched his cheeks a little harder. "Things change when you have a husband and sons," she giggled, finally releasing his face.

Sora chuckled as he ruefully punched her in the shoulder. "Tell me about it," he said with a roll of his bright eyes. "Naminé's my only sanctuary from all the insanity of men."

Satan Spawn snorted and turned his nose up, while Naminé grinned happily.

"Please, Pop," Satan Spawn drawled, "don't make her head any bigger."

Sora laughed and playfully tugged on one of Satan Spawn's blond spikes. "Be nice to your sister. She's the only flower in our perilous home of overdramatic men."

My family and I exchanged looks. _Uh. What?_

"Sora, don't be so mean," Mom said with a light laugh. "Your wife would smack you if she heard you say that."

This time, the Quirke family exchanged looks. Then they proceeded to burst into raucous, uncontrolled laughter while we looked on in confusion.

"Nah, Kai," Sora choked between guffaws. "You've got it all wrong. Y'see, I'm married to—"

"Uh, Pop? Guys…?"

Satan Spawn's voice cut Sora off, but, the odd thing was, Satan Spawn had spoken without moving his lips or anything. In fact, he'd also managed to throw his voice from where he was standing over to the front doorstep. It was pretty cool.

I was about to ask Satan Spawn how he did it, but then I realised that Satan Spawn really hadn't done anything. There was a clone of him standing in the doorway, looking slightly bemused at the whole situation.

This clone looked a hell of a lot nicer than Satan Spawn himself, so I decided I liked this one better.

The clone glanced at me curiously before grinning. "Let me guess," he said suddenly, ignoring the blank looks he was receiving. "You're Axel, right?"

I think I must have gaped at him, because I had _no_ idea of how he knew that.

Satan Spawn nodded and shot his clone a sneer. "Yeah," he replied. "That's the fool that called."

The Clone's grin widened. "I knew it."

I stared at the Clone, then at Satan Spawn, then at the Clone again. God, I was so confused. (Not to mention weirded out.)

The Clone's smile faded slightly and he raised an eyebrow. "Dude," he said, "you okay?"

I just gave him an incredulous look. "Why are there two of you?" I asked stupidly.

Oddly, this just made the Clone laugh. And he had a nice laugh. Satan Spawn, on the other hand, being the spawn of Satan, didn't find this the least bit amusing.

"God, you're a bigger idiot than I thought," he scoffed. "We're identical twins, you douchebag!"

Oh._ Ohh_. That explains a helluva lot. Dude. I felt like such an ass… Smooth, Axel. _Real_ smooth.

Reno snickered at the expression of comprehension on my face. "Nice." Then he flashed Satan Spawn a suggestive look. "You're single, right?"

Satan Spawn looked disgusted. "Up yours, cocksucker!" he retorted.

Reno wiggled his eyebrows. "For you, _anything_," he crooned, leering over at the blond.

Satan Spawn's face turned a violent shade of red and he kneed Reno in the crotch. Me and the Clone exchanged smirks and burst out laughing as Reno doubled over in pain.

"Right," Sora shouted over the laughing. "Kairi! These are my demon-children! The girl is Naminé, and the boys are Roxas and Ven!"

"Which one's which?" Mom shouted back as she looked at Reno's pathetic appearance.

"The one with the attitude problem is Ven!"

Satan Spawn—Ven—folded his arms across his chest as he leered over at me and mouthed the words 'you're next, bitch.'

Needless to say, that shut me up.

The Clone—Roxas—gave me a friendly nudge. "Don't worry about him," he said with a half-smile. "He's just a prick."

Ven scowled at his twin. "Traitor," he hissed.

Roxas stuck his tongue out at Ven.

Yeah. I definitely liked Roxas a lot more than Ven.

Naminé cleared her throat uncomfortably, breaking the utter silliness of the mood. "Um…" She looked over at Roxas inquisitively. "Has Dad come home, yet?"

Mom gave me a confused look, and I immediately knew what she was wondering: _What the fuck are they talking about?_

Roxas' eyes lit up. "Yeah, he was on Castle Gates when I hung up," he told his sister with a nod.

Ven raised an eyebrow. "So, he'll be here in an hour, then. Forty-five minutes, tops."

Naminé frowned. "Dad's not that slow of a driver."

"Sure. When compared to dead people, maybe." Ven rolled his eyes.

Sora gave his melodramatic son a weary nod of agreement. "Now, now, not all people feel comfortable making good time. Your dad's just a cautious person."

Uh._ What?_

Mom stared blankly at them. "Sora," she said slowly, "what are you talking about? Aren't you their father?"

Sora blinked, apparently confused by Mom's question. But he soon realised what she was asking, because he laughed sheepishly. "Uh, yeah, Kairi, about that…um, you remember Riku, right?"

Mom raised an eyebrow. "Of course," she said. "You two were always fighting over me." She smiled in that nostalgic 'ah, those were the days' sort of way.

Sora laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head. "Right…"

"But, really, Sora, I don't see what he has to do with anything—"

Roxas snickered. "You'd be surprised, Ms. Van Alderliesten," he said to Mom, as he looked back outside at the driveway.

Sora moved over to the doorway to stand behind Roxas. Sora's eyes lit up suddenly as the slam of a car door was heard. Roxas cupped a hand near his mouth and yelled out "Hey, Dad!"

Naminé and Ven hurried over to the doorway, completely blocking the outside from view.

Mom made her famous 'what the fuck?!' face at me. I made _my_ famous 'why the hell are you looking at me like that?' face.

A voice that was obviously male began to speak in a smooth baritone from the outside of the house, just out of sight from our angle in the foyer. "Hey, guys. Hey, Sora."

Sora flew out the house, and judging from the muffled smooching sounds coming from the outside and the look of nausea that passed over Ven's face, some really heavy make-out session was taking place outside. (And I actually felt kinda sorry for Ven. Everyone knows that watching your parents suck face is just fucking nasty.)

Mom apparently began to comprehend what was taking place and snapped from her reverie. "Okay, Sora!" she hollered. "I get it; you're gay and married to some dude with a really sexy voice!"

Sora's kids gave Mom identical looks of amusement.

"That's only half of it," Roxas sniggered before turning back to watch his parents.

"Sora!" Mom bellowed. "C'mon, let's see your sexy husband!" She let out a catcall.

Sure enough, Sora skipped back into the house. "Kairi," he said, looking serious, "you have no idea how much catching up we have to do."

Mom rolled her eyes. "Sora, if it's about you being gay, I'm totally cool with it. Reno's gay, actually."

"Why does everyone always think I'm gay?" Reno sputtered from the ground.

I glanced down at him. "'Cause you only ask them why they think you're gay, instead of getting all pissed off and breaking their noses."

Sora gave Mom an uneasy look. "I just hope you keep that perspective," he said flatly, his eyes roving back over to the doorway. "A lot's changed since we were fourteen."

Mom scoffed. "Tell me about it," she said flippantly. "I mean, I always thought that my—" She trailed off as a man with long, silver hair strolled over to Naminé, Roxas, and Ven and ducked his head to plant kisses on each of their blond heads. He glanced up and saw Mom staring at him. He blinked, then his face split into an excited grin.

"Kairi!" he exclaimed rushing in, the three blonds quickly followed in and spread out to get a good view of the drama. He grasped Mom by her shoulders and gave her a friendly smile. "It's been years!" he said, aqua-coloured eyes filled with mirth.

Mom's mouth fell open. "Oh. My. Fucking. God." She rubbed her eyes and looked at the guy again. Then repeated the action. "Are you shitting me?" she asked no one in particular. "_Riku_?!"

I barely stifled a stream of laughter. It just figures. The only two guys who fought over Mom ended up being gay and banging each other. God, this was priceless.

Riku raised a silver eyebrow in confusion and dropped his hands, giving her a puzzled look. "What's up with that expression?"

Mom turned to Sora, her eyes wide. "Sora…?"

Sora sighed and walked over to stand shoulder to shoulder with Riku. "Look, Kairi," he slipped his hand easily into the other man's and laced their fingers together. "Um, this is my husband."

"Oh." Mom's eyes rolled up into her head and she fell backwards—landing on Reno—in a dead faint. Naminé let out a gasp and hurried over to check that she—and Reno—were all right.

Sora and Riku exchanged worried looks. Finally, Riku cleared his throat.

"Well," he said with a small smirk, "that actually went a lot better than I'd imagined it."

Sora snorted in response.

Ven let out a wicked cackle. "Don't move them, Naminé," he said maliciously. "Let's just leave them there…or, better yet, can we dump them out in the middle of the street?"

Roxas shoved him and rolled his eyes. "I don't understand how we're twins," he muttered with a sigh.

Sora looked over at me nervously. "Axel," he said anxiously, "how do you think that went?"

I blinked. "Well, I think it would've been more dramatic if they'd fallen down the stairs or something, but the fall itself wasn't so—"

Ven scowled. "He didn't mean the fall, you douche."

Riku glared at his son. "Watch your mouth," he scolded.

"I meant her reaction," Sora clarified, still looking apprehensive. "I haven't hung out with her in years… I dunno what any of her reactions are, anymore."

"Er…" I strained my memory. "Nothing really fazes Mom anymore," I admitted lamely. "I really don't know how she took that."

"I_ love_ how you're so intelligent," Ven sneered.

Roxas elbowed him and Riku gave him a look of warning.

"Uh… But, no, I actually think she's okay with this," I told Sora. "The last time she was upset with something that surprised her, she stayed conscious and beat the brains out of it."

Sora looked a little more at ease with this. "I hope so," he said fretfully. "I'd hate it if Kairi hated me…or if she beat me up…" He shuddered.

"Um, Dad? Pop?" Naminé said timidly from near the unconscious forms of my family. "Do you think we could maybe help them, now?"

Sora blanched, as if he'd just noticed they were out cold. "Oh my God!" he screeched. "We have to help them! Ahh!! This is _all_ my fault!!"

Naminé sighed and blew some hair out of her eyes.

"No, no, Pop," Ven said as he sauntered over to me, eyes flashing dangerously. "It's totally cool. All we need to do is get rid of_ this_ imbecile—"

"Be nice, Ven!"

"—and we can be rid of them all…"

Roxas dragged Ven away from me. "Sorry, dude," he said apologetically. "He's usually pretty mellow. It sucks that you have to see him like this. Break ups are harsh on him."

Ven's eyes bulged out of his head. "We did _not_ break up!" he screamed. "We're just…taking a short _break_!" And he dissolved into tears.

Riku patted his son sympathetically on his back. "Don't worry, Ven," he said comfortingly. "Terra will come around eventually." Sora nodded in agreement with this and gave Ven a bear hug.

Ven sniffled pitifully. "It-it's so difficult without him," he whimpered. "I can't believe he was perfectly fine with this…"

Roxas raised his eyebrows and nudged me. He got up on his tiptoes. "Don't listen to him," he whispered breathily in my ear. "He and Terra break up every month. They're always together, even when they're not."

I was just about to ask what he meant by this, but then I caught sight of a man dressed in a stained t-shirt and jeans standing awkwardly on the doorstep. "Err, hi," he said dumbly when he realised his presence had been noticed. "Uh, I'm with the moving company…we, erm, have your stuff."

Ven gave him an annoyed look, completely recovered from his sobbing session from two seconds ago. "_Nooo_, really?" he asked dryly. "God, you impertinent and useless fool, get moving their shit in!"

The mover looked mildly offended, but relented and headed back to start moving stuff.

Naminé watched him with an expression that suggested she was torn between exasperation and amusement. "Very smooth, Ven," she mumbled.

Ven smirked at her.

The same mover from before came in holding Mom's plush chair. "Where do you want this?" he asked from behind the backrest of the chair.

"Uh, second room on your left," I said after a moment of confusion. The guy said 'okay' and waddled off.

Two more movers entered carrying our decrepit couch, and I gave them the same directions.

Two final movers came in carrying the coffee table. They paused when they saw Mom and Reno lying in a crumpled pile at our feet. "Uh," one of them said, glancing up at me. "What do you guys plan on doing with these two people?"

Ven made an imperious sniff. "They're not ours," he said loudly. "The buffoons who were moving the furniture and shit of the previous owner out of the house did a horrendous job and left these two people here." He made a sweeping gesture with his hands as his family watched wearily. "Just take them away. Throw them in your storage room or the incinerator or something. This may be a form of biological warfare on the former neighbour's part. That Ursula was such a witch. I wouldn't put it past her to dump bodies with geostigma in an unoccupied house."

The movers stared blankly at Ven. Then they turned to me.

I blinked. "Um, just put them on the couch or something…"

* * *

**The Afterword:** Dude. I actually like this. I'm like…generally satisfied with this. Is that so weird or what? XD

So, this was a kind of strange idea that I'd been playing around with in July. I just never bothered to really do much about it. I wrote about three pages by hand when I was in Africa, but it's only recently that I'm actually working on it.

Jumping on a slight tangent here, but to those of you who don't know who Ven and Terra are, just lookup the upcoming Kingdom Hearts game, Birth By Sleep. Waaaay awesome, guys. I can't wait for that one. 8D

This story is pretty crackish, I'll admit. Especially with regards to Ven. XD This guy here is the complete opposite of what I've always imagined him to be like. _:laughs:_ I always thought he'd be a cool, placid sort of dude. Instead…well…I'm embarrassed to say that he turned out sounding a lot like me during my psychotic moments. D:

The Zexion and Demyx of this fic are kinda different from those in_"VIrtuoso"_. I've made Zexion more emotional, I guess. Demyx is considerably more upbeat here, too, but that just goes along with the setting and scenario, I think. I mean, canon Organisation fics have always struck me as being on the melancholy side. Because this is a "normal" world, their relationship—which already has some background—will most likely escalate a lot faster than that in _"VIrtuoso"_.

As for the Axel/Roxas dynamics… _:sheepish grin:_ It's gonna develop pretty slowly. I'm gonna just leave the two of them to grow more attached to each other at whatever pace they set. (Hopefully it won't take _too_ long…)

Hope you guys enjoyed this. This is my first time trying something that's supposed to be generally funny. And it was a weird process. And…uh…yeah.

Comments/reviews and concrit are welcome and _greatly_ appreciated. Seriously, guys, reviews keep me going. 8D Tell me what you liked, eh?


	2. What a Wonderful World

**Summary:** AU. We moved to get away from the craziness of city life. But Mom didn't know that moving us out to the suburbs would land me with the hot Roxas, his psycho twin who wants to castrate me, and their freaky man-parents. (AkuRoku RikuSora Zemyx &more)  
**Disclaimer:** I find that constantly stating and restating that I do not own even the tiniest morsel of the (legitimate) Kingdom Hearts franchise is disturbingly damaging to both my ego and my self-esteem. So, I'm not going to say it. Ha.  
**Rant:** After letting this sit for a while, I've finally figured out a direction to go in. :D See, I got hit with another stream of inspiration for another AU-type Kingdom Hearts fic, and I just wanted to make sure that the ideas wouldn't be too similar.  
Anyway, I just wanted to thank everyone for their kind reviews! You guys have no idea how happy they made me. :3 I was pretty sure that this fic would kind of just…bet there. Y'know, nothing really interesting. I was also worried about the humour. It is, ahem, a bit vulgar, and I wasn't sure how that would be accepted. But all the wonderful comments really were supportive, and I'm very excited with how this fic'll turn out. _L'chayim!_**  
**

* * *

**Started:** January 26, 2008.**  
Completed:** February 4, 2008.

* * *

**It's Like Hell**  
_(…except worse.)_  
What a "Wonderful" World  
_(I'm not being sarcastic. GOD…)_

* * *

**When**** Mom finally came to, it was a good fifty minutes later**. (We had entertained ourselves by watching the movers dump all our shit in their respective places with inhuman speed and by struggling with hooking up the cable box to the television.) Reno had woken up a little earlier, but once Mom woke up, he immediately took off under the most-likely-false pretence that he would go find a part-time job. (His exact words were "It's too fucking dangerous to stay here—and I swear, that blondie brat-pack _can't_ be good for my health. I'm outta here.") Ven seemed to find the idea of Reno successfully finding a job highly amusing. ("Maybe you could become a maid.")

Naminé and Ven had returned to their house to prepare dinner. Naminé was kind enough to invite us over to eat, and Ven, as I expected, was quick to discourage this with a few well thought out threats.

And after they were relatively sure that Mom wasn't going to kill them, Sora and Riku ushered me and Roxas away to go unpack my stuff while they sat in the kitchen—at the freshly unpacked table—and spoke in hushed voices.

"Sorry about all that," Roxas said tiredly as we climbed up the stairs to my room. "My parents are kinda tactless."

I laughed. "It's totally cool, man. Seriously, that was the most entertaining thing I've seen all day." I grinned at him as we entered my box-filled room. "I mean, man, did you _see_ Reno's face when Mom fell on him?" I guffawed. "_So_ priceless," I sighed nostalgically as I flopped into the swivel chair at my desk.

Roxas chuckled in agreement and sat down on the corner of my bare bed. He glanced out the window, then did a double-take. "Hey, Axel," he said brightly, "your windows are right across from mine."

I eyed the chequered curtains with a triumphant grin. I knew it.

Roxas' eyes flickered over to the stacked boxes lying around before fixing me with a questioning look. "So, do you want me to help you unpack or what?" he asked.

I laughed sheepishly. "That'd be great."

Roxas nodded and slid off the bed and to the nearest box and jerked the tape off in a single, clean stroke. I cringed slightly at the ripping sound.

Roxas opened the box and cast me an amused look over his shoulder. "Gee, Axel," he crowed, blue eyes laughing. "I never would have guessed…"

I cowered into my chair, watching him anxiously as he grinned in a way that made him seem just like Ven. From his tone of voice, I just _knew_ that he'd found something upsetting. "Guessed what…?" I squeaked.

He spun around, fanning out a stack of jewelled CD cases and smirking behind them. "You never struck me as the type who liked the Backstreet Boys."

I flushed. "Those are my sister's!"

Roxas raised an eyebrow, his wicked leer stretching even further. "Your sister's, huh?"

It took me a good two minutes to realise that this was a bad excuse because I didn't _have_ a sister.

"I meant my _mom's_," I 'corrected' a little forcefully, a plastic smile straining painfully on my face.

Roxas neatly snapped the CDs back into a neat stack and gave me another entertained smile as he slapped them into my hands. "Your mother's. Riiiiiight."

I recoiled further into my seat, tucking the CDs away for later use—just not by _me_. I warily watched Roxas strut back to the box and continue to empty it. God, he's a monster… The sarcasm was practically oozing from his voice. (I think I could see how he and Ven were twins.)

Thinking about Ven made me think about Naminé; and thinking about Naminé made me think about Roxas; and thinking about Roxas just made me confused.

"Oi." Roxas' voice cut through my confusion like a blade on an emo kid's wrist. (Goddamn emos.)

I blinked and looked up at him. "What?"

He gave me an obvious look. "Are you gonna help me unpack _your_ shit or what?"

_Oh._ I laughed awkwardly and slipped out of the chair before inching away to another box. Roxas just shook his head with a snort and rolled his eyes, a small hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

It was a nice look for him.

He must've noticed that I was staring, because his blue eyes roved onto me, curiosity evident. "What're you looking at?" he asked slowly, apprehensively.

I cleared my throat hastily, trying to come up with a semi-plausible answer. "Uhh…"

Roxas snickered. "How intelligent." Gah._ Totally_ Ven's twin.

"Uh, no… It's just that we were talking about my mom, I…um…" My eyes lit up. "I realised that I know nothing about your mom."

Roxas looked a bit surprised, and I guessed he hadn't been anticipating that sort of response from me. "Oh," he said vacantly. "Uh, so what do you want to know?" he asked, sounding a bit perplexed.

I scratched at the back of my neck as I clawed my brain for a decent question. "So, um, were you guys adopted or something?"

He furrowed his brow. "Adopted?"

I nodded earnestly. "Yeah, I mean, your parents are, like…uhh…_y'know_—gay, and I was wondering how you three came into the picture…"

He glanced back down at the box and pulled out a pile of Disney soundtracks with a small smile. "Well," he began thoughtfully. He paused and his gaze flickered over to me for a brief second before returning to the CDs. They were all soundtracks. _The Lion King_, _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_, _The Nightmare Before Christmas_…

"Well, what do you think?" he asked lightly, not looking up.

"What do I think about what?" I asked dumbly.

Roxas chuckled lightly and set the stack of CDs on my bed. "About my siblings and me," he replied. "How do you think we came to be where we are with our fruity parents?"

I stared at him. How the hell should I know? I was asking the question for a reason, goddammit. "Uh, well, you and Ven look way too similar to Sora to be unrelated in some form…so, I guess you two are blood relatives of his? And was Naminé adopted?"

Roxas licked his lips thoughtfully. "You had part of it right," he replied. "Naminé, Ven, and I are actually triplets," he said lightly, ignoring the awed expression on my face.

_Triplets?_ I thought stupidly. _How did the three of them fit in there? And what the hell? They look just like Sora—is it even _possible_ to have butt-babies! That's sounds so nasty! He'd probably get a haemorrhoid trying to pop a kid out that way…_

Roxas watched me warily, a disgruntled expression twisting his face. "Ew, what the hell are you thinking about?" he asked loudly.

I gave him the most innocent look I could muster—which really wasn't all that innocent, so I've been told. Supposedly it made me look like a psychotic giraffe… "What are you talking about?" I asked in my dishonestly honest voice.

He wrinkled his nose. "You're definitely thinking about something nasty, aren't you?"

_Your mom-dad is thinking about something nasty_, I thought happily. But, to him, I said: "Of course not."

He gave me a sceptical look before dismissing it. "Whatever," he said flatly, going back to unpacking and idly lifted a stuffed doll of a cactuar out of the box and looked at me questioningly. "Uh," he said, "What up with the cactuar?"

I gave him a haughty look. "It was my school's mascot," I told him, snatching the plush from his hands and pointing exaggeratedly at the foam finger attached to its prickly arm. "_See_," I said loudly, "it says 'Shinra's Academic Academy of Junon'."

Roxas glared at me. "I can read, you know."

I chose to ignore that.

Roxas took the cactuar back and looked at it, a mildly interested look on his face. "So, were you an army brat?" he asked randomly.

"Huh?" Army brat? Where'd that come from?

"Was your father a SOLDIER?" he clarified, glancing over at me from the corner of his eyes.

"Uh, no," I replied. "He worked at the electric company, though."

"Oh." He set the doll down on my desk. "I was just curious. My uncle was a SOLDIER for a couple of years."

"Your uncle?" This was getting interesting, again. When I really thought about it, I knew next to nothing about Roxas' family—including the manner in which it was formed.

Roxas nodded heartily and went back to digging through the box. "Yeah, Uncle Cloud is the eldest child on my Pop's side."

"Oh, yeah?" I asked, trying to casually slide into what I wanted to know. "How does your uncle feel about your dads' marriage?"

Roxas paused in the middle of sorting out some more CDs and frowned. "Well," he said contemplatively, "I don't think Uncle Cloud really cares," he said. "He's way to busy getting his brains screwed out by his boyfriend to really be bothered by anything."

I nearly fell over. _So_ not the answer I was expecting. And he just said it in such an overly blasé voice! He was deadpanning, goddammit! This guy was amazing!

"So, how long have Riku and Sora been married?" I asked, deciding that if Roxas was gonna be blunt, then I would too.

Roxas grinned a little. "They got legally married about fourteen years ago, right after Pop turned twenty, but they've been acting like an old married couple since Pop's birth, really. They got really close after your mom moved away, if you know what I mean…" He let out a rather wicked sounding laugh and went back to his work as I stared at him, absolutely dumbstruck.

"So, you three were born already, right? 'Cause you're like, what, fifteen? Sixteen?"

"Sixteen," he corrected. "I just had my birthday last month. And, yeah, we were already around. We made such a mess of the wedding, too." He smiled in a devious sort of wistful way. "It was so much fun."

I scratched my head, now officially confused. "So, wait, how do you guys play into this?" I asked, completely lost. "Does Sora have some freaky anatomical secret or something…?"

Roxas' smile dropped off his face and he gave me a blank stare. Then he slapped me across my face. Can you believe it! That _bitch_ actually fucking _slapped_ me!

"You're an idiot," Roxas groaned. "Pop's sister was our biological mother, Axel."

"Wait, you guys were born of an incestuous relationship!" OOH! SCANDALOUS! (Insert an L-O-L here.)

He bitch-slapped me again. "No, douche. Our mom got knocked up by some jackass when she was twenty, and she died in childbirth."

I stopped my idiocy immediately. "Oh…" SHIT! _What am I supposed to say!_ "I'm sorry."

Oddly enough, he patted me reassuringly on the back and told me to forget about it. "I'm cool with the way things turned out," he said brightly. "Pop and Uncle Cloud raised us for the first two years, and Dad married Pop a little later and they decided to formally adopt us." He shrugged. "It all worked out, I guess."

I stared at him. "So, you're okay with not knowing your mother?"

Roxas furrowed his brow. "I don't like to think about what I could have had," he said flatly—which was just the same as saying he wasn't okay with it, but he had to deal.

"So, uhh…" I desperately clawed for a change in subject. "What, your biological dad did want you guys?" Whoops. Probably not the _best_ change in subject.

Roxas snorted. "He didn't want to be bothered. He blamed it on my mom for not taking birth control."

"Bastard," I scowled.

A small, sardonic grin spread across his face. "No, man, _I'm_ the bastard." He laughed a little. "But, nah, I'm cool with the way things are. I like my parents. Plus, I've been told that Uncle Cloud and Pop beat up that guy within an inch of his life after he bailed out on my mom," he informed me with a satisfied grin befitting of a guy who'd just been laid. I guess revenge really was just _that_ sweet.

I winced. "Remind me never to get on your bad side," I said seriously. "I really, _really_ don't want your folks—especially Ven—to come for my balls."

Roxas laughed again. And everything was cool.

* * *

"**I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS!****" Mom screeched the second Roxas and his fathers** had left the house.

I winced. She had a scream so loud and obnoxious that it would wake Sleeping Beauty.

"How could they have done this to me?" she wailed, tearing out her strawberry-pink hair. "I mean, for God's sake! We grew up together!"

I rotated my pinky inside my left ear and furrowed my eyebrows. "Well," I said slowly, "maybe they were afraid of what you'd think, Mom."

She gave me a 'bitch, please' sort of look.

I frowned and flicked the earwax away from me. "Well, think about it!" I said. "They were…what, fifteen or something… Wouldn't it be awkward to tell the girl you'd been competing for that you suddenly decided to blitz for the other team?"

Mom raised an eyebrow at me and started rolling up her sleeves in a threatening way that showed off her very non-muscular arms. "Are you calling me a lesbian, boy?" she asked in a low, menacing voice.

"_What_! NO!" I exclaimed hastily, holding my hands up as a sign of peace as I scuttled away from her hitting range. Where the hell had that idea come from!

"Oh." Mom relaxed slightly.

"I'm just saying, maybe they were afraid of what you'd think."

Mom didn't look convinced. "But they came to my wedding," she whined. "Why didn't they tell me then? They were probably banging each other at that point—_oh, God_! Mental images!" She furiously began rubbing at her eyes and swaying dramatically on the spot. I quickly hurried over to steady her.

"It's okay, Mom," I said stupidly. She gave me another one of those 'bitch, please' looks again.

"I just can't believe they'd keep a secret that big from me for so long!" she cried with a theatrical swoon into my arms. I staggered under her massive weight and somehow managed to get her standing again. (Not without difficulty, though. Mom's a lard-ass.)

"But, Mom," I argued. "You said yourself that you guys fell out of contact. Let's face it, before you told them we were moving, they hadn't heard from you since the day you got married—which means that they were in the dark about me and Reno for a couple thousand years."

Mom smacked me upside my head. "I'm not _that_ old, Axel. I'll have you know that Sora and Riku both agreed that I haven't aged a day since I got married."

I gave her an exaggerated wink. "Riiiight, Mom," I said loudly. "Did they compliment you on your cosmetic surgery, as well? Because those doctors did a wonderful job—"

OUCH. For a tiny woman with no muscles, she has one hell of a left hook.

"Uhh, what're you two doing?" Reno asked from the doorway, a bundle of crisply-pressed clothes tucked under his arm and a bag reading 'Olympus Coliseum Weapons and Armour Shop' held tightly in his hand.

Oh, great. Just when I thought the company couldn't get any more illogical.

Mom beamed at Reno and flew over to greet him. "Reno, darling!" she cooed, pinching his cheeks. "How was the job hunting?"

Reno stared down at her, face twisted into an expression of disturbance. He gave me a wide eyed look. "Has she been drinking those elixir things again?"

Mom slapped him and I laughed. Reno ruefully rubbed his freshly slapped cheek, looking mildly put out.

"So, how was it?" I asked after I stopped snickering. "Did you get some kind of minimum wage job?"

Reno glared at me. "No," he snapped. "It actually pays pretty well."

Mom looked horrified. "You're not whoring yourself off, are you? I thought we had a talk about this!"

Reno looked appalled. "I am _not_ whoring myself off!" he exclaimed, looking insulted.

I grinned. "_Riiiiiight_."

He glowered at Mom and me. "I'll have you two know that I have a _legitimate_ job working in a restaurant."

"Oh, really?" Mom looked interested. "What kind of food?"

"Turkish," Reno replied. "It's a pretty chic place just down the street of Entrance Hall. It's named Cave of Wonders… It's run by some rich family from Agrabah, I think."

I snorted. "That sounds like a not-so-cleverly disguised sex store, if you ask me."

Reno flipped me off. "I wasn't asking you," he retorted. He turned back to Mom. "Anyway," he said, "I'll be working there on lunch shifts four days a week until school starts, then they'll be moving me to dinner."

"That's all well and good, and I'm proud of you, dear," Mom said distractedly, "but did you bring home anything to eat?"

My foolish brother gave her a blank look. "You didn't tell me you wanted me to bring food…"

Mom gave him an incredulous look. "Reno, we don't have any food in the house. Don't you think that we would expect for you to get something to eat?"

Reno gawked at her. "Couldn't we just eat the jello mould the neighbours gave us?" he asked hopefully.

Mom and I gave him annoyed looks.

"Forget it," Mom said tiredly. "I guess we could just take up Naminé's offer to eat dinner at Sora's house—"

"NO!" Reno and I shouted in unison. Reno's face was pale. "I'd rather jump off a bridge than have to see that demon Ven, again," he said fearfully. "Earlier, just before I left, he told me to always sleep with night vision goggles and an electro-mag rod. I think he's planning on killing me in my sleep."

Although I'd never admit it to Reno, I privately shared his suspicions about Ven. That guy was Satan Spawn for a reason.

Mom gave us an exasperated look. "Fine. One of you—I don't care who—has to go out and find a supermarket or something."

"Okay." Reno chucked the keys to the Mom-mobile at my head, hitting me square in the forehead. "Axel, you're doing it. I'm beat."

I gingerly touched my forehead. "I can't," I said as I picked the keys up from the ground. "Mom took my license after the…uh…y'know." I fidgeted. "_The Incident_."

I don't want to talk about The Incident. I really don't. (Forget that I don't want to, I'm _legally_ not allowed to talk about it.) All I can say is that it involved me, a national holiday, and a runaway golf cart.

Yeah. Let's not even get into that story.

Reno's eyes widened. "I forgot all about that." He gave Mom a horrified look. "Forget it, I'll go."

Mom gave me a scrutinising look before shaking her head and licking her lips pensively. "Nah, it's okay, Reno," she said. "I'm willing to overlook The Incident for now. You can go rest. Axel will go find a supermarket and all that."

Reno looked uneasy. "Are you sure we should let him?" I shot him a pointed glare. "I'd hate to see a repeat of The Incident."

Mom nodded firmly. "I'm going to make sure there won't be anymore car-related tragedies."

I gave her a relieved look. "Oh, good," I said. "How're you gonna do that?"

Mom smiled a strange, toothy grin and plucked the car keys out of my hand. "I'm going to ask one of Sora's kids to take you."

"What!"**  
**

* * *

**Standi****ng on the doorstep of the Seelenfreund-Quirke house revealed two things**. One, the yellow polka-dots I'd seen on the curtains weren't actually polka-dots. They were stars. Two, somebody in the family was definitely a bit obsessed with Disney. The peephole in the door had been carefully crafted into a likeness of Mickey Mouse. It was pretty clever, actually. The peephole itself was right in the centre of the mouse's nose, right above the grinning mouth.

In retrospect, it was kind of freaky.

I hesitantly rang the doorbell and nearly fainted when it started belting the Mickey Mouse Club March.

Yeah. Somebody was _definitely_ obsessed.

The door opened to reveal either Roxas or Ven—I wasn't sure which. It was only when he gave me a look that said he wanted the flesh to melt off my face that it became obvious.

"You…you're not the one who's driving me, are you?" I asked hesitantly.

An expression of sincere nausea passed over Ven's face. "I'd sooner offer myself up to that paedophile Mr. Xehanort than deal with you," he said dryly.

I let out a sigh of relief. "Oh," I said. "Good."

He sniffed haughtily. "I share the same sentiments." He turned away from me, facing the depths of the house. "Hey, Roxas!" he barked into the house. "Your idiot is here!"

I gave him a wounded look. "I resent that."

He snorted. "I resent you," he fired back with a roll of his eyes.

Roxas hurried over from behind Ven and quickly greeted me, all the while giving Ven suspicious glances. "I'll be right out," he told me. "I'm just gonna go grab a pair of shoes."

I nodded and watched him disappear in a nearby closet that was heavily adorned with Disney stickers. Ven watched me with distrust.

"What're you looking at, you mephistophelian douchebag?" he hissed, eyes narrowed in contempt.

I blinked at him in confusion. "What did you just call me?" I asked, more baffled than insulted. "A mephisto-what?"

His lips curled slightly as he sneered at me. "You're an even greater idiot than I thought."

I was about to start arguing with him when Roxas reappeared. Ven immediately left the doorway and vanished into the shadows.

Roxas watched him go, an eyebrow raised. "Did I just miss something?" he asked as he left the house, locking the door securely behind him.

I shrugged. "I think I missed something, too."

Roxas rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he said, leading me across the grass and onto the sidewalk in the direction of the town.

I followed him, feeling a little more lost now than earlier. "Uh, aren't we driving?" I asked stupidly.

He glanced over at me, surprise evident in his blue eyes. "Your mom said that you weren't allowed to drive," he said simply, and I barely concealed a wince, though I was thankful he didn't press the subject. "I figured that the easiest way for you to learn where everything is located was by having you learn how to get there by foot."

I groaned. "Walking everywhere was something I hoped I'd left behind in Midgar," I complained, even though I continued following him.

Roxas smiled a little and patted me on the back understandingly. "You don't really have much choice, man."

"I_ know_," I whined pathetically as I matched my stride to his. "Couldn't you have just driven us there? I mean…don't you have to eat dinner soon or something?" I asked hopefully. "I'd just _hate_ to make you late to eat…"

He grinned at me. "You're full of it!" he laughed, punching me lightly in the arm. "And don't sweat it. Actually, I should be thanking you. There is _no way_ I'm gonna eat Naminé's toxic sludge if I can help it."

This surprised me. "She can't cook?" To me, Naminé had come off as the type who liked to bake brownies and frosted cupcakes and shit like that.

Roxas mock-gagged. "She can't cook for her life!" he exclaimed.

"Really?"

He gave me a dead serious look. "Really," he said firmly.

I raised my eyebrows. "Then, why do you guys let her cook?" I asked. "If she can't, then aren't you guys just torturing yourselves?"

Roxas clapped a hand to his head and let out a heavy sigh. "It's not that simple," he said wearily. "You see, we're each assigned a day of the week to cook dinner."

"Just dinner?"

Roxas nodded. "My dad always does breakfast—he's the only one who can actually cook—and with lunch it's every man for himself."

"Oh," I said. "I think me 'n' Reno would die if Mom stopped cooking. Reno can't cook for shit and I can burn_ water_."

He chuckled. "I can imagine," he mumbled, looking amused. "Anyway, Pop cooks on Mondays, Ven cooks on Tuesdays—he can actually cook really well, Naminé cooks on Wednesdays, I cook on Thursdays, Dad and Ven cook together on Fridays, and Dad cooks on the weekends."

I scratched my head. "That's way too complicated," I muttered. "I'd forget if it was my day or not."

Roxas laughed a little. "I forgot a lot at first," he admitted sheepishly. "But, I guess I got used to it in the end."

We had just turned onto the street with the Kingdom Campus. Roxas cast a forlorn look over at the giant T.P.'d statue of a moogle that stood in front of the high school.

"Who did this?" I asked, sensing that the defaced moogle was hurting his school's pride and, consequently, his as well.

He shrugged in a would-be careless way. "Probably some thugs from Seifer's gang," he said sourly. "They're a group of assholes from our rival school in Balamb Garden."

I raised an eyebrow. "Balamb Garden?"

"It's the next township over," he clarified. "It's always been the moogles versus the moombas around here." He sighed. "Let's get out of here," he muttered as he quickened his pace.

I stared over behind us at the moogle statue that was rapidly disappearing in the distance. "Moombas, eh?"

Roxas shrugged noncommittally. "Whatever, we always beat them in blitzball and struggle, anyway." His cheer didn't sound authentic and more forced than anything else.

"Haven't you guys ever tried playing the same shit on them?" I asked curiously. "I dunno…draw penises on a giant moomba statue or something?"

Roxas grinned nostalgically. "My friend Hayner did that once," he answered. "He got a week of detention, though."

"That must've been good."

He nodded, a wicked leer spreading across his face. I inched away from him. "Watch it, Roxas," I said anxiously, not liking the look on his face. "If you keep doing that, you'll end up looking like Ven."

He snorted, giving me an entertained look. "You really don't like him, do you?" he asked as we turned onto a new street.

I gave Roxas a wide eyed look. "I think it's more like he wants to castrate me," I told him. "That's kind of interfering with any possible friendship."

Oddly enough, Roxas shrugged and gave me a sympathetic look. "You'll get used to it."

I gaped at him. 'Get used to it'? He was making it seem like Ven would always hate my guts.

…

Actually… That didn't sound so far-fetched when I actually thought about it.

"Ven really isn't so bad when he's not being a total bastard," Roxas continued, either not seeing my horrified expression or choosing to ignore it. "He just gets passionate and sensitive and shit about things. Like, his relationship with his boyfriend…"

"Ex-boyfriend, you mean," I put in helpfully.

Roxas snickered. "Right," he said lightly. "But not really. I told you before, man, Terra and Ven break up all the time. Like every month."

All the time? My face paled. "Does that mean that Ven'll be like this 'all the time'?"

Roxas smirked a little at me. "Yup," he said, a little too happily. "It's really fun to watch. The other day he nearly bit the head off Tinkerbell—Isabel Tinker—because she was laughing at him and called him a fairy."

I blinked. "But he seemed really" I made quotation marks with my fingers "'out proud' to me. He was ragging on me even before I could tell him that I'm good with gays."

Roxas pursed his lips thoughtfully—and I couldn't help but think how…_gay_ that looked. "Well," Roxas began, "that chick always knows how and when to hit his sore spots; which, I guess, comes with the property of being friends with Ven, but I dunno… She was just poking fun. Everyone knows that Tink is the biggest fairy of them all, anyway," he told me in a conspiratorial whisper-shout, his eyes laughing.

I grinned, having fun with his gossip, even though I hadn't the slightest flaming idea who 'Tinkerbell' was. "Whaddya mean?"

Roxas made a big show of looking around to make sure no one could hear us before yanking me down to his level and whispering hurriedly in my ear, "She says that she's going out with Peter Pan, right?"

I fidgeted slightly. His breath was tickling me. "Right…"

"Total ruse, man. Pan is gay. I've seen him with Jimmy Hook—like, _seen_ them, if y'know what I _mean_…" he wiggled his eyebrows. "Tink is just helping him keep a cover."

I gave him a wide-eyed look. "No. Way."

Roxas laughed a little. "Seriously. Besides, Naminé told me that Tink has been totally ticked off with that Wendy Darling chick. 'Total sexual chemistry,' Naminé said." He pulled away from me and continued walking down the sidewalk.

I cracked up a bit as I followed him. "It's fucking crazy how you know all this shit, man. You're such a girl, Roxas."

Roxas gave me a look of mock-hurt. "But, Axel," he whined, "I thought you _liked_ that about me!" He sniffled dramatically before ceasing the act and laughing. "No, seriously, don't even get started on those girl-tendencies, Axel," he said, rolling his eyes. "I get enough about them from my friend, Olette, as it is. She's a raging feminist, man."

My eyebrows raised in surprise. "There's nothing wrong with being a feminist."

Roxas gave me an 'if only you knew' sort of look. "She's the scary kind of feminist, though," he said wearily. "Y'know, the bra-burning type."

"Fire and no bras." I drooled a bit. "I think I'd like her—"

Roxas silenced me with a quick smack upside my head. "Don't even think about it," he said flatly.

I snickered at his livid expression. "Don't worry, man," I snorted, giving him a hearty thump on the back that sent him stumbling. "I won't go hitting on your girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend!" The look on his face was fucking priceless. He looked absolutely sickened at the very idea. "I think I'd rather kill myself than become Olette's boyfriend," he proclaimed with a horrified cringe. "Olette likes her men whipped and grovelling."

I briefly had a strange mental image of Roxas sniffling in tattered rags and chains and immediately put it to the back of my mind. It was kinda sexy. In a really, _really_ gayass way.

"What the hell is that?" Roxas suddenly asked, giving me a wide-eyed stare. "Is your nose bleeding!"

Shit.

"Uh, no," I said lamely as I dug through my pockets for a tissue, covering my nose with my hand in a half-assed attempt.

Roxas gave me a dubious look, then tugged one of those Squeenix tissue packs out of his pocket and handed me one. "You're pathetic."

I glowered at him as I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Fuck you," I said. "I've already heard that enough from Ven, today. God, one of you is enough…"

Roxas rolled his eyes. "Shut up," he drawled. "Anyway, we're almost at the supermarket," he said, pointing at a large building on the next block.

I nodded slowly, then paused to look around at our surroundings—a bunch of little stores and restaurants—only to realise that I had no idea how we'd gotten here. "Uh…" I gave Roxas a shit-eating grin. "Where are we?"

He rolled his eyes again. "We just passed the schools and Castle Gates," he explained. "We're heading out onto Postern.

I gave him a blank look. "Oh." I paused. "What?"

He sighed in a way that reminded me of my mom—y'know, when she's bemoaning me 'n' Reno's stupidity—but mostly Reno's. "You exit Rising Falls by making a right, pass the schools, make a left onto Castle Gates, then—oh, for God's sake, just buy a map!" he suddenly barked, his temper flaring in a way befitting of Ven.

I quickly jumped away from him. "Ven!" I exclaimed, eyes wide, "I knew it was you, you sick bastard!"

Roxas gave me one of those daggered glares. He kicked open the supermarket's glass door and stormed in. "If I was the real Ven," he mused, "you'd be dead by now—and missing some…_vital_ parts of your anatomy," he said loftily, looking a little too happy to be healthy—for me, anyway.

I cringed and forced a plastic smile on my face. "Did I call you Ven?" I asked incredulously, ignoring the derisive look he was giving me. "How silly of me!" I said overenthusiastically. "You're much too cute to be that insensitive asshole," I cooed, pinching his cheeks like my mother had pinched Sora's.

Roxas' cheeks flamed and he slapped my hands away. "Fuck you," he muttered, shuffling away and ducking into one of the aisles.

I grinned and skipped after him. "Roxasssss," I sang loudly as I chased him around into the aisle, "You know you're cute!" I was so busy being annoying that I didn't even realise I'd walked into him.

Roxas groaned and spun around, looking mildly pissed. "Watch where you're going, Axel," he griped before turning back toward the blue-haired chick who had been standing behind him. "Sorry about that," he said tiredly. "Ignore him," he said, jerking his thumb in my direction, completely disregarding my sputters of protest.

She smiled a bit and shrugged. "It's not a problem," she said pleasantly, tucking some of her short hair behind her ears. She glanced over Roxas' shoulder and spotted me. "Is this guy giving you any trouble, Roxas?" she asked, sizing me up in an almost predatory way. I felt like bolting from her. She was fucking scary…

Roxas peered over at me impassively. I gave him a pleading sniffle. _Roxas!_ I screeched in my head, _Please, don't sic your crazy friends on me!_

After a moment, he shrugged and moved slightly so he could face me and the girl at the same time. "Nah, he's just my new neighbour," he said lightly, apparently having relaxed.

The girl looked confused. "New neighbour? Who moved?"

"Ursula," Roxas replied with a satisfied grin.

She pursed her lips in displeasure. "That witch?" When Roxas nodded heartily, she let out a sigh. "You got lucky," she remarked. "What made her suddenly decide to leave?"

Roxas shrugged. "I guess she got tired of Demyx and Marluxia playing all those pranks on her 'poopsies.'"

The girl snorted. Then she gave me a long look. "So," she said, sounding more curious than instigating, "who are you, then?"

I grinned widely. "I'm Axel van Alderliesten," I said grandly, making a sweeping bow. When I rose, the girl was smiling amusedly. "And who might you be?" I asked in an overly polite voice.

(I'm pretty sure Roxas coughed something that sounded like 'idiot.')

She laughed softly and extended her hand to shake mine. "I'm Aqua Zabat," she said as I shook her hand energetically. She nodded toward Roxas, "I'm one of the best friends of Roxas' brother."

I felt myself pale. "You're friends with _Ven_?" I croaked, feeling the world spin.

Aqua chuckled. "I see you've met him." She gave me a sympathetic smile. "He does have that effect on people."

Roxas sniggered. "So do a pair of hungry Carnotaurus," he guffawed.

Aqua stifled a laugh. "Indeed," she said, shielding her smile. "Anyway," Aqua said, "I don't want to distract you two, so I'll be on my way." She held up a half-filled grocery basket. "I still have some shopping to do," she explained sheepishly.

I nodded soberly. "I would hate to distract you from your duties," I said nobly, making Roxas give me a disbelieving look.

Aqua smiled brightly. "Same to you," she said cheerfully. "I'll see you two around, I suppose." She moved to exit the aisle, but before she did, she turned back to Roxas. "You should bring him by Moonbucks some day during my shift."

Roxas rolled his eyes. "Like he _needs_ any more caffeine or sugar."

I pouted at him.

Aqua laughed and waved us off as she left.

Roxas and I watched her go. Once she was gone, I grinned at Roxas. "She's pretty hot."

A strange mix of both amusement and repulsion passed over his face. "You're such a pig," he said at last with an exasperated sigh, a grin on his face.

I leered. "Am I a hot pig?"

Roxas snorted, shaking his head. "Forget what I said. You're not a pig. You're just impossible."**  
**

* * *

**When I came home about two hours later with a couple ****dozen bags of groceries (mostly cookies) and a black eye**, I was a little annoyed to find that my family wasn't too surprised.

In fact, it was almost like they had expected it, more than anything.

Assholes.

"So, Axel," Mom said, making no attempt to help me bring the groceries into the kitchen. "Who gave you the shiner?" She found this hilarious. I swear, she shouldn't be qualified to be a mother. So unsympathetic.

"It wasn't Ven, was it?" Reno asked with a smirk as he dug into the bags, probably searching for condoms—not that he ever had the opportunity to use them. (OH! BURRRRNNNN!)

"No," I snapped. "It was Roxas."

Mom looked surprised. "Really?" she asked, pulling out a box of those artistically frosted "Eat Me" cookies. (Y'know, those cookies are mad addicting. Once you start eating them, you can't stop eating them until you're, like, five sizes bigger.) Mom ripped the box open and immediately set to nibbling on her first cookie. "That's strange," she mused. "Sora and Riku told me that Roxas is usually very level-headed unless provoked." Her face darkened as she gave me a suspicious look that sent me reeling. "What'd you do to the poor boy, you sick bastard?" she demanded, shoving a cookie in my mouth. "If you've upset him in any way, there'll be hell to pay!"

God damn it! Why can't she be this protective over me when _I'm_ the victim!

I quickly took the cookie out of my mouth and spluttered out a reply. "It wasn't my fault! How was I supposed to know that Roxas doesn't take well to sexual advances!"

Mom choked on her cookie.

Reno merely gave me a wry smirk. "Easy there, Ass-el," he jeered. "Not everyone molests their friends and calls it love."

I bared my teeth at him. "Right," I said loudly. "That's just you and your friends. My bad."

Reno snorted and flipped me off.

Mom, who had just been working on getting the mouthful of cookie out of her windpipe, threw me a half mortified, half intrigued look. "What the hell did you do to him?"

"I already told you, Mommy," I said, giving her a kicked-puppy look and wibbling my lower lip to make it look more convincing. "Roxas gave me a booboo."

Mom sighed and wiped the cookie crumbs off her fingers using Reno's shirt as a napkin, completely ignoring his squawk of indignation. "Axel, love," she said in that condescending voice she normally reserved for when she talked about sex, drugs, and make-up. "Roxas is from a different family and lifestyle. You can't impose the banter that you share with Reno with him."

Reno looked disgusted. "Ew, Mom, that's not cool. I dunno about Axel, here, but I'm not into incest. Anyway, Axel and I would never be able to mock-flirt with each other."

I nodded fervently in agreement. "Yeah, Mom. He's right. Nobody would believe a hot piece of ass like me would be dating that fugly douchebag."

"HEY!"

Mom folded her arms across her chest and gave us reproving stares. "I'm serious, Axel," she said, actually sounding serious for once. "I don't want to be making a bad impression on Sora and Riku—or their children, for that matter."

"What's the big deal?" Reno asked, looking generally interested as he licked some cookie frosting off his fingers in an NC17 sort of way. "It's not like they're trying to be saints for us. You saw that demon, Ven."

I shuddered and Mom frowned.

"Sora and Riku told me that he was having some relationship trouble, you two should be more sympathetic," she sniped. "After all, it's not like either of you have been able to hold down a girlfriend—or boyfriend, for that matter—for more than five minutes."

Reno gave me a sideways leer. "It's 'cause they always manage to hold me down," he cackled.

I gave him a horrified look. "Like I really needed to know _that_!" I groaned, clawing at my eyes, screeching about the horror of the unwanted mental images. It was like mind-rape.

Mom smacked him upside the head. "Oh, shut up, you two." She gave me a last look. "Axel," she said, "I want you to apologise to Roxas. I don't care whose fault it was."

I opened my mouth to protest that it wasn't my fault that he got overly sensitive, but she wouldn't hear another word of it. She just wanted to eat dinner.

"Dude," Reno said as he sifted through the grocery bags. "Didn't you get anything dinner-worthy? All I can find are cookies, cinnamon sticks, and pomegranate juice."

I blinked. Oops. "I knew I forgot something…" I said sheepishly, cowering under Mom's furious glare. "Can't we just order a pizza or something?" I asked feebly.

"Yeah," Reno piped up, surprising me with his unexpected back up. "I saw a good Chinese place on Postern. I'm pretty sure they do delivery."

Mom glared at me for another second before relenting with a sigh and going for the phone book.

The doorbell rang roughly forty minutes later, and because Reno and my Mom were way too engrossed in the NSL—the National Struggle League—match that was on, they forced me to get up and answer the door. (It was the Twilight Town Dusks vs. the Midgar Materia. Obviously, we were cheering for Midgar's team. 'Cause once you ignore the fact that they always lose, they're fucking sweet.)

When I opened the door, a slender and rather distracted looking Chinese guy was standing there, balancing the bag of delivery in his hands and shifting his weight every now and then from one leg to the other. When he noticed that I had opened the door, he jumped slightly and all but forced the paper bag into my arms.

"Sorry—" he began in a sheepish, feminine voice before quickly cutting himself off and practically hacking out a lung. "I mean," he tried again, this time his voice sounded overly deep and gruff. "I mean, sorry that took so…uh…_fucking_ long," he stammered, embellishing an unusual amount of stress on the word 'fucking.' "But, uh, y'know how it is…stupid bitches in the kitchen were taking so long to, uh, fry your rice…"

I raised an eyebrow at him and he let out a nervous stream of high-pitched laughter, visibly sweating bullets.

"Eh heh… What's up with that, right?" he coughed loudly. "Those goddamn women wouldn't stop…painting their nails and…stuff…" He gave me a rather strained smile. "Stupid chicks don't know their place…beneath us guys…"

I snickered and he paled, as if just realising what he'd just said.

"Oh, God," he mumbled, his voice relaxing and becoming softer in more ways than one as he wiped sweat from his brow, "that came out _so_ wrong…"

I laughed. "Don't worry about it—" I squinted at his name tag "—Ping."

Ping blinked at me, looking confused, before his eyes suddenly went wide and he nodded jerkily. "Right!" he yelped, looking panicked. "Ping! My name is Ping."

I gave him a long, steady look. He seemed to be a few gummis short of a ship, to me. I gave a tentative smile and carefully gave him the payment for the Chinese food before quickly closing the door on him.

What a psycho bastard.

"Who was that?" Reno asked, his eyes never leaving the television screen as Twilight Town's totally gay MVP, Setzer, totally decimated our guy.

"The delivery boy from Land of Dragons," I said, dropping the bag of food on the coffee table.

Reno blinked and shot to the table and immediately snatched a carton of Mushu pork and started ripping into it like a rabid animal. Mom wrinkled her nose and made a sound of revulsion.

"They took a long time," Reno commented, but because his mouth was full of pork, it sounded more like "Dey fuck ah ong fyme."

I shrugged, handing Mom a carton of lo mein before helping myself to the pork fried rice. "The dude said that the kitchen took a long time cooking up the rice."

Mom hummed in approval. "That's good," she remarked. "That means that this stuff isn't leftovers."

Reno paused in his devouring of pork to give her a contemplative look. "Y'know," he said slowly, "it's probably a freaking good thing that we didn't go over to eat dinner at Sora, Riku, and the blondie brat pack's house."

Mom narrowed her eyes at him. "What are you talking about?"

Reno made a face at her. "Well, I don't think it's too far-fetched to think that that psychopath Ven would have gladly stooped to the level of poisoning my food. Especially if he was the one preparing it," he said obviously.

"Don't be silly, Reno," Mom scoffed.

My brother looked abashed. "Mom!" he cried, "You've met the kid! He wants me _dead_!"

"So does the rest of the world's population and over a hundred disgruntled Dalmatians," I put in helpfully.

Reno's green eyes widened comically. "How was _I_ supposed to know that their spots weren't coloured in with Sharpie! I was only _four_!"

Mom shot me a look that said 'not this, again, goddammit.'

"Actually…" Reno paused mid-rant to give me a scrutinising look. "With that black eye, you kinda look like one of those dogs, Axel."

I scowled at him and rose to my feet. "I don't need this…this…" I struggled to think of a word that made me sound like some oppressed victim of the world. "This…thingy," I finished lamely.

Mom looked unimpressed. "'Thingy'?" she repeated, raising her eyebrows. "That's the best you could come up with?" she guffawed.

I glowered at them and spun around on my heel and stormed of to my room.

Then I turned around half-way out the door to go back and take my fried rice with me.

'Cause fried rice is fucking sweet.

I did end up hanging out in my room for the rest of the evening. There really was no point in watching the rest of the Struggle match. Twilight Town always wins—I'm positive that they cheat with steroids or orange juice or something.

I spent the next few hours after I finished eating just organising the shit in my room. Truth of the matter was that Roxas and I had been extremely productive in unpacking, and all that was really left was for me to arrange everything where I wanted it.

I'd just been hanging up my C'leenix—that's Circle-Enix for those of you who aren't quite so video game savvy—logo curtains up when something cold sailed in through my open window and fucking _nailed_ me right in my right eye—my good eye.

"SHIT!" I screeched as I clapped a hand over my newly blooming bruise.

I stared down at the object on the floor that had all but robbed me of my vision. It was an icepack. Go figure.

I stuck my head out the window and looked around, searching for my assassin. But he was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh, fuckity fuck fuck!" a voice groaned from in front of me.

I jerked my head up, nearly bashing my head on the window frame when I raised my head. Roxas was leaning out his window, a guilty expression on his face.

"Roxas?"

"I'm so sorry, man!" he wailed. "I didn't mean to hit you in your other eye—oh, fuuuuuckkkk!" He tugged fretfully on his spiked hair.

I squinted at him through my swollen eyes. "What the fuck are you talking about, dude?"

He let out a dejected sigh and slumped against his window pane. "I felt bad for punching your lights out, earlier—"

I snorted. "It kind of was overkill, considering all I did was grab your ass—"

"In front of my _uncle_!"

I gave him an abashed look. "How was _I_ supposed to know that your uncle Yahoo worked at the supermarket's butchery?"

"That's Uncle Ya_z_oo," Roxas corrected, pursing his lips. "But that was so uncalled for! Why would you do something like that!"

I gawked at him. "Why are you making such a big deal out of this?" I asked in amazement. "Nobody I know in Midgar would've thrown such a stink."

"That's just the point, Axel," Roxas snapped. "You're not in Midgar, anymore, _okay_?" I fell silent at this, and his eyes softened. "Look," he said, his voice calming, "I'll admit that I shouldn't have socked you in the eye…I was startled, but that doesn't excuse my actions." He paused and smirked. "I should've listened to Ven and kicked you in the balls."

The expression on my face must've been pretty damn funny, because he laughed.

"Okay," I said slowly. "I forgive you for trying to make me blind in my left eye…"

Roxas let out a sigh of relief.

"But," I cut in, "that doesn't explain why you just tried to take out my right eye, just now."

Roxas laughed awkwardly. "Uh, yeah… Right… Well, um, I was feeling really bad about how I'd hit you, and when I saw your window open, I thought I'd throw an icepack in and you'd get the idea. But then, right after I threw it, you went and showed up right in my line of fire—er, ice." He scratched the back of his head shamefacedly. "Sorry, dude."

I stared blankly at him. Then at the ice pack. Then at him. Then I laughed.

"Dude," I hooted, "that's just too _funny_." And I just broke down into laughter while Roxas looked mildly annoyed.

He shook his head dismissively, but there was a small half-smile on his face. "Man," he said. "I was right on the money, earlier. You're fucking impossible." And he started laughing with me.

And I'm not really sure what it was about the whole scenario, but it made me feel like there was a warm fire beneath my skin. And I decided that I could get used to this—this whole laughing it up and being a total idiot with Roxas.

It felt…nice.**  
**

* * *

**The Afterword:** Uh, WOW. So, maybe the relationship between Roxas and Axel will escalate a lot faster than I previously anticipated. :0 That last bit certainly hadn't been planned…

D8 Axel's totally taken on a life of his own, I'm telling you. He doesn't listen to anything I want him to do, anymore. DX He's completely out of control.

:D In other news, the loverly Aqua made her debut:3 I kind of see her as being a very sensible and all-around tranquil person. :U I think it's her name that's given me that impression. X3 It seems like the name of a rather peaceful person.

:0 Terra will make an appearance, soon! As will a number of other people… _:excited:_

Actually, this chapter was actually pretty gruelling to write. D: This fic takes a lot out of me. I didn't really notice it with the first chapter, but that's because I was sort of on a sugar-high at the time, I think… _:sheepish:_ Sorry for the long wait, guys… D8

But, anyways, I have a few things that I just wanted to mention…

Firstly, I really was overjoyed with those of you who made comments regarding my love of cheesy anecdotes and references to Disney movies and other Squeenix—in this case, C'leenix—games. (i.e., Alice doing mushrooms.)

Sooooo, I'm hoping those of you who are reading have caught at least a couple of these jokes and have L-O-L'd about them for a bit. X3 If you found some, I'd really love to know which ones you all caught! (There's a bunch, so we'll see how you fare! Ohohoho…)

Just for the record, a lot of you guys saw the whole Castle Soul: String of Recollections and Last Dream and Circle-Enix, bit. But, in order to tie up any loose ends, I'll just say this: _Squeenix is to Square-Enix as C'leenix is to Circle-Enix_. And if you don't quite get my reasoning behind the whole "C'leenix" thing, then try saying it out loud. Then scroll up to find out what brand of tissues Roxas uses.

8DDD Jesus, I'm such a goddamn loser!

Tell me what you liked, people! Comments and feedback are extremely appreciated!


	3. The Bright Side of Suffering

**Summary:** AU. We moved to get away from the craziness of city life. But Mom didn't know that moving us out to the suburbs would land me with the hot Roxas, his psycho twin who wants to castrate me, and their freaky man-parents. (AkuRoku RikuSora Zemyx &more)**  
Disclaimer:** Notice how this is labelled '_dis_claimer', not 'claimer'. Yeah. I don't own it.**  
Rant:** This is waaaay overdue. Don't kill me. _Please_.  
I was kind of uninspired…not as a whole, just in this particular fandom. I got sucked back into the Harry Potter fandom for the first time since I turned eleven, and I got an influx of plot bunnies for that fandom. Not Kingdom Hearts.  
IT'S NOT MY FAULT!! Blame my school friend. I don't even know how she dragged me in… I was the one who got her hooked on fanfiction. e.e; The irony is rather unsettling…  
If anything, you guys should thank my kid sister for this chapter. She's my slavedriver. She kinda gave me The Look and was like, "Oi, when's the next chapter of _"It's Like Hell"_ going to be written, fool?"  
D8 She does The Look very well. It's terrifying.**  
Notes:** Yes. Denzel is incredibly OOC. D: I didn't intend for him to be like that! He sort of took over and became…weird… DX He's out of control, just like everyone else. (Just more so.)  
There's a quote in there from Stargate SG-1. I'll L-O-L if anyone recognises and points it out. :D  
ONE MORE THING!! There's a poll on my profile that is rather related to this fic. If you're interested in seeing some of the real places that have inspired and been recycled into the fic, you should really vote!  
And I swear, I would've uploaded this yesterday, but FF was being retarded and wouldn't let me sign in. D:

* * *

**Started:** April 21, 2008.  
**Completed:** May 18, 2008.

* * *

**It's Like Hell**_  
(…except worse.)_  
The Bright Side of Suffering_  
(…oh, wait…there __**isn't**__ one.)_

* * *

**We moved in to Radiant Garden**** on Wednesday, July 2****nd**. I spent most of Thursday and Friday catching up on sleep—goddamn time difference—and unpacking. The only time I ever saw the light of day was when some brat with a ridiculously long name and a longer nose was going door to door, trying to sell tickets to some lame puppet show.

Anyway, over my first weekend living here, I learned a few things. Most of which I _really_ could have done without.

The first thing I learned was something I probably—'probably' being the key word—could have figured out myself in due time. This was that Zexion was one of those study-holics. That made a lot of sense to me in a stereotypical sort of way. Anyway, Zexion, being the study-holic he is, was signed up for this FSAT course over the summer. (You know what the FSAT is, of course. The _Fucking Scholastic Assessment Test_.) I think the irony of Zexion's concern over his grades was the fact that he didn't even need to crack books to get the goddamn 800 in each section.

The second thing I learned was that Zexion's adoptive mother, this hot chick who was _definitely_ young enough to be his sister, worked insane hours at the local pub, The Seventh Heaven. And because both Zexion and she disappeared for a few hours every Saturday to tend to their responsibilities, this left Denzel, Zexion's temperamental little adopted brother, alone in the house. And this is where the babysitter enters the picture.

The third thing I discovered was that there was a rather bizarre monopoly on the babysitting business in Radiant Garden. There were only two babysitters. There was the respectable one, Miss Poppins, but she was really more of a long-term nanny than anything else, and, from what I understand, she didn't really stray far from the family she was hired for. The second babysitter was anything but legit. In fact, the second was as far away from legitimate as humanly possible.

Yeah. That's right. The only other babysitter in this entire godforsaken neighbourhood was Demyx.

_DEMYX_.

There's a lesson to be learned here, children. Do not take Demyx's offers to hang out over the weekend. _Ever_.

It's tragic, really. When Demyx popped up at our house asking if I wanted to go with him to work, I thought he was a godsend. Reno had already left to work at the Cave of Wonders, and Mom was trying to sucker me into doing all of the rest of the unpacking for her. (I'd already done my work, so as far as I was concerned, I was _done_.) So, I agreed and bolted to go with Demyx.

"It's really great that you wanna help out," Demyx was saying, a gleeful look on his face. He adjusted the rather loaded duffle bag he was carrying. "Most people don't have the patience or energy to do what I do, and it's a job that really wears me out, you know? It's always so nice to get a spare hand, especially when—"

I sort of tuned his voice out at that point. I was a little preoccupied with suspiciously eyeing that duffle bag. My mom had always warned me that if I saw someone 'unstable' walking around with a duffle bag, I was to promptly turn around and get my ass to the other side of the country.

The other part of my mind, the less paranoid and more lewd part of my mind, was busy trying to figure out exactly _what_ Demyx did as a job. The way he described it, it didn't seem too implausible that he was some sort of prostitute. It would certainly wear him out, anyway…

Obviously, I wasn't paying too much attention, so it sort of struck my by surprise when I finally noticed that we were standing on the violet stoop of Zexion's house and ringing his doorbell. (Thankfully, it didn't blast some freaky Disney song on us, like Roxas'. It started screeching Dies Irae from Verdi's Requiem, instead.)

"Demyx, what are we doing?" I asked nervously. The ghostly doorbell choir was fucking scary.

Demyx just grinned that stupid shit-eating grin at me. "You'll see!"

There was the muffled sound of footsteps behind the door, then the starch white door creaked open to reveal a rather wide blue eye. "Password?" a soft voice frantically hissed from behind the door.

Demyx assumed a very sombre expression. "The best reaction a moogle can synthesise is in your pants."

…what?

The door was quickly flung open and a pale boy with wild brown hair roughly grabbed Demyx and me by the wrists and dragged us in before slamming the door behind him and throwing himself against it, his chest heaving with exertion as he panted heavily, eyes flickering from side to side.

"Demyx," the boy croaked as he relaxed slightly against the door, "you're two minutes late." He looked almost crazed in his comment, his breath rattling in his lungs.

Demyx smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, Denzel," he said. "It's just that I was picking up a friend." He gestured toward me and Denzel promptly threw himself back against the door, his eyes wider than before and a look of utter shock on his face as he saw me. It was like he hadn't noticed me before.

If Demyx noticed the berserk reaction, he benignly chose to ignore it. Instead, he smiled widely. "This is Axel," he told Denzel. "Your brother might've mentioned him, he just moved in to Ursula's house."

Denzel nodded, gazing over at me from beneath his bruised eyelids with scrutiny. "That witch," he mumbled appreciatively. He slowly peeled himself from the door and gave me a wondrous look. "Why would you move into her house?" he mused. "It's cursed."

I managed a small grin. "That's what Ven said."

"Ven Seelenfreund-Quirke?" Denzel asked as he turned back to make sure all of the locks on the door were tightly fastened.

I snorted. "The one and only."

Denzel nodded knowledgeably. "Ven is an incredibly intelligent individual," he told me while gazing suspiciously out the peephole. "It's quite remarkable how few people know the things Ven knows."

I felt like screaming. Of all the kids Demyx could have introduced me to, it just _had_ to be one that worshiped the ground that psychopath Ven walked on.

Denzel led us from the front foyer into the kitchen, mumbling beneath his breath about how Ursula had never liked him and how she used to give him dirty looks and cackle obnoxiously at him.

"Good thing she's gone, then," I said encouragingly. Denzel just nodded wearily in agreement. Then he blinked and studied my black eye. "What happened to you?" he asked curiously.

"I got punched." _Duh_.

Denzel nodded knowledgeably, and Demyx leaned in closer to take a better look at the nasty purple bruise. "Ven?" he and Demyx asked at the same time.

"No," I said, feeling lame. "Roxas."

Demyx looked surprised. "_Roxas_?"

"You got your ass handed to you by _Roxas_? _Our_ Roxas?" Denzel said slowly, a large grin spreading across his face. "Now that's just _sad_."

I flushed and bit back the choice threats that were bubbling up in the back of my throat. "Shut up!" I said loudly, getting drowned out by the raucous laughter.

Their kitchen was a strange shade of lavender that reminded me of Easter eggs. Denzel, when he'd finally calmed down, opened the fridge and pulled two bottles of Wishing Well Water out and tossed them lifelessly at us. Demyx caught the curved throw easily, clearly anticipating the haphazard aim. I wasn't so lucky. The bottle landed on my toe. I let out a very manly shriek.

Demyx gave me a concerned look. "You okay?"

I winced and picked up the bottle, smiling through gritted teeth. "Yeah…"

Denzel snickered into the back of his hand. Demyx gave him a reproving look and tugged him along into the living room, his duffle bag swaying dangerously as they moved. I followed after them, trying to disguise my limp as best as I could.

"You've done all your homework, right?" Demyx asked as he dropped his bag and started to unzip it.

"Of course!" Denzel said with a roll of his wide eyes as he collapsed on the purple-leather sofa. "Zexion would fillet me alive if I skived off my academics…" He snorted and nodded with his head toward the mantelpiece over the fireplace. It was laden with framed photographs, and Zexion's silvery-blue hair and deep-set cobalt eyes were impossible to miss. Denzel studied a picture that featured a young Zexion, perhaps at age five or six, glaring malevolently into the camera. "He's a scary guy when it comes to schoolwork," Denzel remarked appreciatively.

"Is he really that smart?" I asked as I glanced at the ridiculous amount of framed certificates and trophies that had Zexion's name printed neatly on them.

Demyx gave me a rather dry look. "Zex could become valedictorian without even going to school once. He knows everything. He aces stuff he's never looked at. It's inhuman." He opened up the duffle bag and carefully unloaded a GameStation 2 with reverence, setting it in front of the television and busying himself with connecting all the necessary wires and cords, attaching one last wire to whatever was hiding inside his duffle bag.

Denzel straightened up in his seat on the couch and intently watched Demyx. "The usual, then?"

"You got it, man."

I gave Demyx an anxious look. "The usual _what_?"

Demyx just grinned maniacally as he switched the GameStation and the television on and cranked up the volume. "You'll see!"

Almost immediately, a loud, unearthly screeching wail penetrated the relative quiet of the room, and the photographs on the mantle began to treble unfaithfully as the horrible din was blasted from the television's speakers.

I clapped my hands over my ears and shouted at the top of my lungs to Demyx, "Are you _insane_?! What the _fuck_ is this game?!"

Demyx spun around and fixed me with a psychotically wide grin of uncanny euphoria. Strapped to his body and cradled loosely in his arms was a long, blue, plastic instrument the likes of which I could've never imagined in my most disturbing, elixir-induced dreams. The instrument was like some kind of giant, mutant guitar, standing taller than Demyx himself, its neck flowing into a gourd-shape.

Demyx pressed the differently shaded blue keys in quick succession, his fingers moving like blurs, each button giving way to a shriek more painful than the last. The noise was _unbearable_. But Demyx just kept standing there, hitting those goddamn blue buttons and grinning like a madman as his instrument-thing created sounds akin to dying cats in heat.

It took me a few minutes to realise that the horrific screeching of the instrument was actually a very liberal (to put it lightly) rendition of Utada Hikaru's "Passion."

Denzel and I just watched Demyx's fingers fly across the instrument, me in dumb silence and Denzel with shouts of encouragement and the occasional cuss over a missed note. (Interestingly, when Demyx hit the wrong notes, instead of emitting the excruciating scream of the instrument, a sound was produced that sounded almost like _real_ music.)

I didn't even realise when the song had finished—I was slightly deaf after that performance. When I finally had a decent idea of what Demyx and Denzel were saying, I managed out a strangled, "What the _fuck_ was that?"

Denzel looked surprised. "You guys don't have this game in Junon?" His voice was slightly muffled to me and my apparent deafness. "We even knew about it in Sector Five! It's, like, the most popular video game on the market after _Castle Soul_ and those _Super Bash Bros._ games! You guys seriously didn't have it?!"

I twitched. "_No_," I said stiffly. "Midgar would've imploded a long time ago if we had _that_." I gave them what probably looked vaguely like a homicidal glare. "What. Was. That."

Demyx gave me an obvious look and tossed the hell-instrument at me. "It's Sitar Hero! _Duh_!"

* * *

**It's by some miracle granted by the Big Lesbian God****dess** above that I hadn't completely lost my sense of hearing by the time Zexion returned, some two or three hours later.

Zexion strolled into the living room and gave me a half sympathetic, half amused look. "I imagine you were playing video games the whole day?" he asked as he tucked his house keys away into his pocket.

I stared blankly at him. "What?" I shouted. All sounds were kind of jumbled sounding and generally muffled—like someone had stuffed my ears with marshmallows. "What did you say?!"

Zexion looked a little annoyed, and I wisely chose to take my leave.

"Sorry, Demyx, but I have to get going!" I bellowed over the roar of Sitar Hero's rendition of "A Whole New World". Demyx didn't even notice me shouting my lungs out; he was so entranced with hitting all those stupid buttons. "I'll see you later!" I yelled, making an effort to avoid making eye contact with Zexion's Death Glare. "Bye, Denzel! Bye, Demyx!" I turned to face Zexion. "Bye, Zexion!" I screamed in his face.

Zexion forcefully seized my wrist and threw me out on the stoop with strength that I wouldn't have imagined a shrimpy person like him ever having. "Just get out of my house."

I staggered away from the door and gazed at the house across the street—Roxas' house—just in time to see the Seelenfreund-Quirke family trooping up their front walk to the house. I couldn't see them perfectly, but it looked like they'd been dressed up nicely, like they'd just come back from church or something. From where I stood, I could just make out the matching blond heads of Roxas and Ven. One of them hung back to get the mail while the others walked in. I decided to take a risk and go over to talk to him, praying to the Big Lesbian Goddess that it was the more pleasant of the two.

When he noticed me approaching him, he turned slightly and gave me a small smile. "Hey, Axel," he said as he riffled through the envelopes.

I smiled, feeling safer knowing I hadn't stumbled across Satan Spawn. "Hey, Roxas," I said jovially. "Haven't seen you in a while. What's up?"

(God, I sounded lame.)

Roxas shrugged nonchalantly. "Oh, you know, the usual. Chores, surfing the internet, playing video games…" He briefly glanced up at me. "What about you?"

"I've been slaving away in the mountain of boxes my mom wants me to unpack," I told him. "And then, today, I got stuck babysitting and going deaf with Demyx."

He smirked and gave me a half-grin. "Poor baby," he cooed.

I gave him the best indignant look I could muster without bursting into laughter. "No thanks to you," I sniffed. "You weren't here to save me from the horrors of Sitar Hero!"

Roxas scoffed. "What, am I your knight in shining armour, now?" he drawled sarcastically.

"Of course!" I exclaimed, then stopped and gave him a once-over. "No, wait, you're not. You're in a suit!"

And he was! It was a pretty casual one, but it was a suit, nonetheless! It was an impossibly dark shade of onyx, and the inside lining was made of a glossy white fabric.

Roxas flushed darkly and his eyes darted at me from beneath his spiked bangs. "Not. a. word," he growled through gritted teeth.

I grinned widely, relishing in his embarrassment. "_Roxas_," I purred in his ear, "why're you so self-conscious?" I leered. "You look _sexy_."

Roxas' face turned purple and he elbowed me in the gut. I doubled over in pain and collapsed. He glowered at me. "You're an idiot," he muttered half-heartedly, cheeks still flushed as he made a show of turning away from me and continuing to look through the mail.

I pouted up at him. "You're so mean!" I whined. "It was a _compliment_!"

The glare that he cast me effectively shut me up. After a moment of silence, Roxas shuffled the mail into a neat stack and peered down at me, the pink stain on his cheeks almost gone. "Sorry about that," he said awkwardly, averting his gaze as he offered me a hand. I accepted it and he quickly hefted me to my feet.

I shrugged and brushed imaginary dirt off my ass. "You really need to lighten up, Roxas," I said easily.

Roxas frowned. "Maybe you just need to be less of a pervert," he said without malice.

I sniggered, and Roxas rolled his eyes, muttering 'idiot' beneath his breath, a resigned grin on his face.

"So, what's with the monkey suit?" I asked.

He bowed his head a little and tapped a flat, circular black hat that had been expertly pinned over his spikes. "I was at synagogue," he said obviously, straightening a little and handing the wad of mail at me so he could loosen his tie.

I gawked at him. "You're Jewish?"

He rolled his eyes. "No," he said sarcastically. "I'm _obviously_ Hindu."

I snorted.

The front door of Roxas' house swung open and Ven hopped out, flying down the path on a skateboard. He slowed to a halt when he got to the mailbox. He'd already changed out of his formal clothes, and was looking relatively Roxas-like with a passive expression replacing his usual scowl. "What're you doing here?" he asked me blankly.

I stared at him. "I live next door, you know," I replied. "Do I need a reason?"

Ven gave me a slightly manic grin. "Do I need a reason to decapitate you limb from limb?" When I let out a slightly hysterical giggle in response, Ven scoffed and flicked a dandetiger seed off his black 'GO, GO, YAOI **TEAM**!!' t-shirt. I privately wondered where he'd gotten such a shirt. It only seemed like it was encouraging him.

Roxas snatched the mail back from me and handed his twin two envelopes and a subscription to the weekly _Shounen Hop_. Ven daintily accepted them and sniffed primly when he glanced at the envelopes. Without a word, he crumpled one into a ball and chucked it at me.

"What was that?" Roxas asked over my sputters of protest.

A sour expression twisted Ven's face. "An apology letter from Terra," he said, looking thoroughly disgusted. "That's the sixth one this week."

I picked the wrinkled envelope off the road and gave Ven a thoughtful look. "Well, you won't have to deal with a seventh, right? There's no post on Sunday," I said reasonably.

Ven grunted in agreement and headed down the street, presumably for town. As he left, I could just make out the picture of a paddle—the infamous 'yaoi paddle'—on his back, inscribed with the word 'Seme'. A chill ran down my spine as I gawked and turned to Roxas and gawked some more.

"Is he seriously a _seme_?" I babbled, eyes wide with horror.

Roxas gave me an amused smirk. "With an attitude like that?" he snorted. "_Please_." He rolled his eyes and started up the walkway to his house.

"That's not a goddamn answer!" I roared as I sprinted after him. "Crazy people like that shouldn't be allowed to top!"

"Relax, Axel," Roxas snickered. "You're overreacting. It's not like he'll be banging you, anyway—you're not his type."

"THANK GOD!"

"Anyway," Roxas continued as he opened the door to his house and wiped his feet on the Mickey Mouse welcome mat, "He's only a figurative seme."

"Say what? I'm not savvy to the gay dialect."

"Did you say 'gay dialect'—never mind." Roxas stifled a sigh. "It means he's manipulative—you've probably noticed. He's definitely in charge of the relationship between he and Terra, it's just that he's not…_physically_ dominant."

I gagged dramatically at the thought, which made Roxas snicker.

"It's like my aunt says, he tops from the bottom." Roxas opened the door wide and stepped into the house. From where I stood, I could just make out a life-size cardboard cut-out of Walt Disney standing reverently in the corner by a glass table with legs that had been crafted to make the table look like a large platter held high above Mickey Mouse's head. The infernal mouse, _of course_, was dressed up like a cheerful waiter.

Tearing my eyes away from the table, I looked at Roxas hopefully. "D'you wanna maybe go hang out and egg the Mom-mobile or something?"

Roxas set the mail down on the table and gave me a slightly remorseful frown. "I'd really like to chill with you, man, but I can't right now," he said slowly, watching me warily. "I've got work…"

"Oh." I wilted slightly, feeling bummed. Roxas stared at me for a split-second before visibly brightening.

"I finish at five, today. If you want, we could meet up somewhere and I'll take you around the town or something." Roxas cast his eyes up at the ceiling. "Just an idea."

I beamed at him. "Sick! It's a date!" I said giddily, striking a dramatic pose befitting of a lovestruck prince swooning over his dearly beloved. "Until then, my love, you must find a way to persevere without my Herculean body or my gloriously addictive presence! Do try not to break your sworn oath of fidelity during my absence! I shall be most crushed if I find you have been with another!" I articulated with a classic drop-to-the-knees-in-despair. "So crushed that I may ask the Demon-Child Ven to indulge in his desire to rid the zit of my existence from the pubescent face of life! Please," I pleaded, staggering over to him on my knees. "Do not let me give the dragon that much satisfaction! Such is blasphemy, and I would certainly be condemned to hell!"

The corners of Roxas' mouth twitched slightly in amusement and he shook his head with a small sigh. "I'll try my best," he drawled, resigned to his fate of enduring a few hours without my awesomely sexy charisma. He gazed down at me, tapping his cheek with a finger in contemplation. "Although," he murmured, playing along, "I'd feel awful denying my adorable brother the pleasure of watching your head roll down the street…" He gave me a scrutinising stare before flashing a half-smile. "He will have to make due with watching Terra's innards strewn out over the back porch."

I broke character and gave Roxas a horrified look. "Dude," I said, "that's just fucking nasty."

Roxas chuckled and yanked me to my feet. "Just get out of my house."

"But, but, but," I stammered as he shoved me out the door, "How am I supposed to reach you so we can meet up?" I demanded.

"I'll just call you," he said dryly. "I have your cell phone number," he said slowly and clearly, as if talking to someone very stupid.

"Ohhh…"

"Yes, 'ohhh'. Now get out." He shut the door.

I blinked, staring at the freaky Mickey Mouse peephole for a minute or two before relenting and heading back over to my house. It was only when I went inside that I realised that I'd never given him my phone number.

* * *

**I should've known there was something fishy about** the whole scenario. Since when did my mom like to hang out with me for no reason? That evil bitch… She knew I would be trusting, too! She hasn't pulled anything like this since I was four! God damn it!

D'you know what she did? She abandoned me, that's what.

She goddamn abandoned me in a fricking Moonbucks.

WITH NO MONEY!

I mean, it's shitty enough that she ditched me in a town I don't know jack about, but, _nooooo_… She had to leave me with no money, too! How the hell am I supposed to buy my fucking coffee, now?!

I twitched and fidgeted and pulled on my hair. The smell of coffee was sooo gooood… God damn it, I was going to LOSE IT.

Do you comprehend the meaning of that phrase?

Lose it…it means go crazy, nuts, insane, bonzo, no longer in possession of one's faculties, three fries short of a happy meal…WACKO!

Damn that stupid bitch! Damn her to the seventh layer of biblical hell to suffer a hell of biblical proportions! I hate her so much, I hope she falls into a hole with bad acoustics and dies a slow, miserable death with no television and no cookies! I hope she becomes fat as a whale! She'll be so huge that people will watch IMAX on her! She'll—

Something tugged on my pant leg. "Excuse me, sir, but we're going to have to ask you to either sit down quietly or to leave. We'd really rather the cops not get involved."

I blinked and looked down. I was standing on top of a table, my hands thrust up in the air. A Moonbucks employee (my bad, a _barista_) was giving me an amused look from beneath his green visor.

I stared at him blankly, swallowed, and thickly asked, "Did I just say all that out loud?"

He laughed and nodded heartily. "'Fraid so," he said. "You better get down from there before people actually start to notice…"

"What? Whadd'ya mean 'before they notice'?" I gazed out over the rest of the small café and was dumbstruck at what I saw. Nobody else in Moonbucks seemed to have noticed my random outburst and was still languidly sipping their iced coffees and fappuccinos. I climbed down off the table and continued gaping at the other customers.

The barista looked mildly confused by my surprise and his blue eyes flickered over to follow my own. A small grin played at his lips. "Surprised?" he asked jokingly.

"Incredibly," I replied honestly. "Is everyone deaf or something?"

The barista snorted. "They might as well be," he told me. "It's just that we deal with explosions like yours pretty frequently. I guess people have just learned to ignore it all."

I stared at him. "What do you mean—?"

He cut me off with a rather haggard look. "Have you ever heard of a kid named Ven Seelenfreund-Quirke?"

My eyes widened in understanding. "I just moved in next door to him."

The Moonbucks barista sombrely took off his visor—releasing some slightly flattened dark spikes near the back of his head—and gave me a small bow. "You will be in my prayers," he said gravely.

I twitched. "Thanks for the support."

The barista frowned and shoved the visor back over his head and spiked hair. "You'll need it," he scoffed. "Trust me, man, I've known Ven since I was five—he pushed me into the sandbox at kindergarten—and he's not someone to be on the wrong side of." He clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Take it from somebody who knows—" here, he paused and winced, "—from…_repeated_ experience—that it should be a huge priority to remain on Ven's good side. He's actually a pretty damn valuable friend, but he's also completely capable of being a thousand times more horrifying than your worst nightmare."

I gave the guy a look of disbelief. "Somehow," I said, "I can't see Ven ever being someone worth keeping around."

Strangely enough, the guy looked mildly annoyed when I said this. "Ven is actually one of the greatest guys I know," he snapped. "He's just…" he paused, apparently struggling for an accurate word to describe the enigma that was Ven. "…temperamental."

"More like homicidal, if you ask me," I told him as I seated myself. He looked like he wanted to argue, but relented, looking weary.

"Yeah, I guess," he said with a bit of an exasperated nod. "I got my first white hair because of him, you know. He really causes a lot of stress for me…" Suddenly, his face screwed up like he was going to cry his eyes out. He collapsed into the chair opposite mine and looked fully prepared to brood as he was finally reduced to tears. "God," he moaned as he tearfully buried his face in his arms, "Why do I even _bother_?!" he wailed. "It's clear that he's not putting the same effort forth as I am! Am I the only one who wants this to work or something? Why do I put myself through this?! Am I a masochist? Why can't he be more affectionate? Why—"

Just like the now sobbing barista had done for me, another barista—a relatively young woman with wavy golden brown hair and concerned, pale blue eyes—gently laid a hand on his arm and opened her mouth to comfort him.

"Why the hell are you wasting your time _whining_, you sorry excuse for a man?!"

…maybe not.

The woman throttled the depressed barista by the neck, shrieking her head off at him. "What the hell are you doing, emo-bitch?! There are still customers to be served, goddamn it! Get off your ass!" She turned to regard me with a large, slightly crazed smile. "Sorry, sir," she said to me, still strangling the teen. "You really shouldn't have to see things like this." She then turned back to her angst-ridden barista and continued to curse his lack of testosterone.

I watched in silent horror at the abuse. Then, the door to the washroom flew open, revealing Aqua standing in the doorway clad in the typical green Moonbucks uniform and a face mask, a toilet plunger raised triumphantly over her head.

"I've unclogged it!" she announced, to a smattering of applause from some bored looking customers. (This was probably the most interesting thing they'd seen all afternoon.) Then Aqua saw the chaos taking place at our table and leapt to the aid of the asphyxiating barista, throwing herself at the woman.

"Lightning!" she cried, and I instinctively looked out the window, confused. It was a perfectly sunny day. She dragged the woman away, leaving the dark-haired teen gasping for breath and very distraught.

"Aqua!" he moaned, eyes filled with tears, "Why didn't you let Lightning kill me that time? Then I wouldn't have to deal with this anymore!!"

The woman made another furious attempt to attack him, but Aqua held her back, glaring over at her co-worker. "Oh, stop it!" she reprimanded in a way befitting of an elementary school teacher. "We go through this every month, and you always end up pulling through. You'll be fine."

He sniffled and wiped at his tears. "You think so?" he asked in a tiny, hopeful voice.

The light-haired woman looked enraged. "Aqua, don't encourage him!"

Aqua ignored her, tugged down her face mask, and smiled reassuringly. "I know so."

A small, watery smile spread shyly across his face and he nodded happily. "Yeah!" he agreed. "You're right, Aqua." He sighed contentedly and leaned back in his seat. "I feel much better."

The woman groaned and threw her hands up in aggravation. "Damn it!" She rounded on Aqua. "Aqua!" she roared, "I told you not to interfere anymore! I've been waiting for an opportunity to fire this bozo for years!"

The barista looked hurt. "But I've been working here since I was fifteen!"

"And he's been dating Ven since he was fourteen," Aqua muttered beneath her breath. "That means he's been giving you plenty of opportunities, Lightning."

I blinked. "Wait," I said, and they all jumped, as if just noticing me for the first time. I pointed at the now-calm barista. "You're dating Ven?"

He gave me a withering look. "We're taking a break," he hiccupped.

I stared at him. "So, you're Terra?"

He nodded, his eyes flashing as he charged me and threw me against a wall. "You know my name? How do you know my name?" His breath quickened. "Was Ven talking about me? Was he… Was he—"

Aqua gently pried Terra's iron grip off me and sat him back down in a chair. "Terra," she said calmly, "Just breathe. He'll be back before you know it. You know how he is."

The woman scowled. "I know how Ven is, too," she interjected. "And I know this'll just happen all over again in a matter of weeks." She stormed back to her post behind the counter. "It wouldn't be the first time!" she shouted, pointing imperiously at Terra. "I've seen it happen over and over and over!"

Aqua frowned. "We've seen it just as many times as you have, Lightning, and they do always end up back together."

"Only to break up again!"

"Could you two please stop talking about my love life?" Terra looked as though listening to these two women dissect his relationship was making him physically ill.

The woman waved him off then pointed an offending finger at me. "You!"

_HOSHIT! She's fucking scary!_

I quaked under her intense glare. "Yes?" I squeaked. (Don't give me that look, bitches! It was a manly squeak!)

"You're the son of Kairi, aren't you?" she boomed as she set about making coffee like a woman on fast-forward.

I nodded hastily. _Holy crap! How'd she know that?!_

She nodded slowly, eyeing me like a steak. "You're a bit on the scrawny side," she commented, not unkindly. "Kairi was rather thin as a child, too, but never this…gangly." She studied me for another second before shrugging. "You get it from your father, I expect." She handed me her finished cup. She gave me a knowing look. "You'll be needing that."

I stared at her. "Um, who are you?"

She looked taken aback, and someone in the corner of the café snorted into their coffee and yelped in surprise. "I'm Lightning," she told me with a raised eyebrow. When she saw the expression on my face, she glowered. "My parents were hippies!" she barked. "All of us—both of my brothers and my sister and I—were named after obscure things in the sky."

"Okay," I said slowly, "But that still doesn't explain how—" I was cut off by the chiming of my cell phone. It was a number I didn't recognise. I glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was five o'clock. Something warm flared in my chest. It was Roxas!

I looked back up at them embarrassedly. "Sorry, I need to take this…"

Aqua didn't seem to be listening. "Your ringtone is 'Someday My Prince Will Come'?" A smirk was slowly forming on her face.

I glared at her and quickly flipped my phone open. "Hello?"

"Axel?"

I felt a small sense of unexplainable satisfaction. "Yeah, Roxas?"

Terra's eyes widened. "Roxas? You're talking to him?"

"So, you still up for gallivanting through the town?" he asked, sounding anxious.

"Yeah!" I said gleefully, ignoring my company. "Uh, but I'm kind of lost and I can't navigate for shit… D'you think you could find me…?"

Roxas chuckled. "Sure, sure, it's no problem. Where are you?"

"I'm in a Moonbucks."

There was an aggravated sigh. "Axel, seriously, there's like three Moonbucks in each square kilometre. Be _specific_!"

I took a sip from the coffee and choked. It was fucking _saturated_ in sugar and caffeine. "I'm in the Moonbucks that Aqua and Terra work at," I coughed. Terra rubbed my back comfortingly.

"Aqua and Terra? Oh! Dude, you're on Postern. That's where most of the town is, y'know."

I wrinkled my nose and stared suspiciously down into the coffee cup. "Is it too much for me to ask you to come get me?"

"Nah, I'll be there in just a minute. Stick tight, man. I'll fish you out before someone kills you."

I glanced over at a homicidal-looking Lightning. "You better hurry, Roxas. The probability of death is looking pretty damn high."

Roxas snickered and the call ended. I pocketed my phone and looked up to see three expectant faces. I blinked dimly at them. "…what?"

Terra looked mournful. "Some people don't have to work at all," he said forlornly as he staggered off to the cash register.

I watched him go with a raised eyebrow. I turned to Aqua, who was carefully shielding her mouth with an elegant hand. "What was that about?" I asked her.

She gave me a sly look and pulled her face mask back into place. "Terra's just making predictions," she said lightly. "Anyway, I've gotta go get rid of this plunger…" She scurried away, leaving me feeling very confused.

I took another sip of the coffee and promptly choked. I spun around to Lightning, who was brewing another pot of caffeinated sludge. "What the fuck did you put in this?" I demanded as my legs started jittering uncontrollably. "Adrenalin, maybe?"

A slightly lewd expression spread across Lightning's face. "I heard ahead of time from Sora—"

"You know Sora?"

"DON'T INTERRUPT ME!!"

"Don't interrupt her," Terra advised, watching us cagily. "She's pretty temperamental herself. Time of month and all."

"I'm right _here_, you know!" Lightning said loudly. "And you!" she rounded on Terra, who cowered behind the cash register. "Just because you're gay does _not_ mean that you can gossip about my personal business with everyone!"

Terra looked mildly perturbed. "What does gossip have to do with being gay? That's so stereotypical! I'm not everybody's confidant!"

Aqua nodded in agreement as she reappeared from the back closet. "He's right, you know. Everyone confides in Demyx."

I stared. "Demyx?" I echoed. "Is that a joke? I'd sooner trust _Ven_—" Terra winced "—with my deepest, darkest secrets than Demyx."

Aqua smirked. "You and I may be the only people who think so," she remarked, patting me warmly on the back.

"_May I finish_?" Lightning growled. We all quickly silenced ourselves and she continued, now looking like a teenage girl with an exceptionally juicy bit of dirt to spread. "Anyway, I heard ahead of time from Sora that you and Roxas were getting along well, and—"

Roxas burst into the café, a chequered backpack hanging off him. Lightning immediately shut her mouth and watched as Roxas hurried over to my table. "Sorry that took me so long," he said, the words toppling out of his mouth in a rush. "My boss wanted me to finish a project, but I managed to convince him to let me go…"

"You didn't whore yourself off to him, did you?" Lightning demanded from behind the counter, her icy blue eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You can do a lot better than that slut, Jack Sparrow…"

Roxas jumped back in surprise when he saw the woman leaning precariously over the counter, giving him a scrutinising look. "Auntie Lightning!" he exclaimed, rushing over to meet her.

(I spun around to face Aqua, my eyes wide. "She's his aunt?!"

Aqua snorted derisively. "Of course," she sniffed. "Sora and Cloud are plenty sensible. Where else do you think Ven could've gotten all the crazy from?")

Roxas didn't seem to be listening to us, though, and neither did Lightning. "How've you been? How's the mister? What about Larxene?" Roxas asked, shooting questions like rapid-fire.

Lightning smiled wryly. "I've been lovely," she told him. "My man's as whipped as ever, and Larxy is just peachy."

Roxas nodded with a lopsided grin. "Larx's at camp, right?"

"That's right. She went to Technician Camp. You know how she is—she likes working with all those gadgets and gizmos. It makes sense, I guess. Both my husband and I were pretty into tech when we were kids."

("Who's Larxene?" I asked Terra and Aqua. They exchanged dark glances before Aqua replied that she was, and I quote, 'Ven's female counterpart.')

"Anyway," Lightning said, peering over at me from beneath her auburn fringe, "Roxas, sweetie, you better get your man out of here. Otherwise he'll scare away all my customers with his antics."

I felt sort of offended by that, and was sorely tempted to point out that her staff—with the exception of Aqua—was already scaring off customers. (The fourth person who worked at the Moonbucks had misplaced one of her shoes and had done nothing but crawl around the café looking for it.)

Roxas cast a sheepish look in my direction. "Yeah," he agreed, "We should probably get out of here." He nodded at me and jerked his head toward the door. "C'mon, Axel."

I nodded eagerly, only _too_ eager to leave this insanity behind me. Far, _far_ behind me. But on our way out the door, Terra hopped over the counter and stopped us.

"Roxas," he said, eyes wide, "How's Ven? Is he all right? Does he miss me? Is he with another—"

Roxas quickly shushed him. "Ven's more tetchy than usual," he replied slowly, clearly choosing his words carefully. "He's always in a foul mood when you two aren't together, after all…" His voice trailed away and he gave me a desperate look. I nodded, catching his message and pushing the door open so we could make a quick getaway.

"Wait!" Terra latched onto Roxas' wrist. "There's one more thing," he licked his lips nervously. "Did he get all my letters?"

I coughed. "He got them, all right," I muttered.

Terra caught what I said and looked hopeful. "Did he read them?"

Roxas looked panicked. "Er…"

I quickly kicked the door open, wrenched Terra off Roxas and waved exaggeratedly at the Moonbucks staff. "It was a pleasure meeting all of you, and we really, uhh, must do this again sometime!"

They all stared at me incredulously. I laughed nervously. Then I grabbed Roxas and dragged him away from Terra and down the block, and we didn't stop running until we were a good four blocks away.

"That…Terra…" I gasped, clutching at the stitch in my side. "He's a…fucking…wreck!"

Roxas nodded emphatically, his face was flushed and his breathing was laboured. "It always…gets…like this…when…he and Ven…break up!"

It was then that I remembered something funny and burst into painful laughter.

"What…are you laughing…at?"

I wiped a tear from my eye as I hacked out my lungs. "Your aunt…the one…who said that…thing…that was Lightning!"

Roxas raised an eyebrow at me, before straightening slightly. (He'd almost caught his breath.) "What about her?"

I looked over at Roxas, the grin stretched across my face threatening to tear me in two. "She was right!"

"About what?"

"Ven tops from the bottom!"

* * *

**For our little excursion, Roxas had decided to take** us into a part of town called the 'Marketplace.' It really wasn't an open-air market, like its name suggested. It was really just more of an area where there was a high concentration of grubby restaurants and small shops that sold junk. Really cool junk.

I pressed my nose against a glass window, practically salivating. "_Oh. My. God_."

Roxas sighed and sidled up behind me, looking into the window. "What?" he asked, sounding bored. "What's the big deal?"

I spun around and gaped at him. "Roxas, do you _know_ what this is?!" I exclaimed pointing dramatically up at the squat building.

Roxas raised an eyebrow. "It's the C'leenix building," he said simply. "Didn't you know they have a branch of their studio based here?"

I returned to drooling at all the collectibles on display. "No," I said dreamily. "But this just made the town go up a few hundred thousand points, in my book." My eyes hungrily took in the posters for upcoming games. "Look, Roxas!" I grabbed him and forced him to look at a poster featuring a skinny boy with dark, spiky hair and a huge pair of blue headphones. "It's their upcoming game! Look! _The World Terminates with You_!"

Roxas groaned and shoved me away. "Goddamn it, stop being such a fanboy!"

I gawped at him. "But! But! But! Looook!" I pointed excitedly.

"Dude, I hear about C'leenix every day." Roxas rolled his eyes. "My Pop works there."

My jaw dropped open. Wait! Wait! What?!

"Sora works there?"

Roxas nodded indifferently and forcefully led me down the block, away from the studio. "Yeah. He was part of the head staff behind the _Castle Soul_ series."

HOLY SHIT.

"Yeah," Roxas went on, "He's very proud of _Castle Soul_. It was largely his idea, you know. Oh, but I'm sure you knew that already." He laughed. "All the Disney stuff in the games was due to his influence."

"SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!" I exclaimed, digging my heels into the pavement. Roxas turned and regarded me with raised eyebrows. "If your pop's that influential and important and shit in C'leenix, doesn't that mean that you get spoilers and all the prototypes or whatever?"

Roxas looked amused. "Pop doesn't believe in giving spoilers. He's very proud of his work and always wants to see us generally surprised."

"But do you guys get all the games before they come out?"

"Well…yeah, but I don't see why this is so important to y—"

I grabbed him in a bone-crushing hug. "Roxas, I'll love you forever if you let me play the über new games when you get them! I'll do anything! _Please_!!" I begged, bordering on hysterics.

Alarmed, Roxas quickly started working to detach himself from me. "You're such a freak," he said with an exasperated groan. "You don't have to do anything; I would've let you know, anyway…"

"Have I ever told you I love you?"

The look I was giving him was meant to be one of adoration, but I think it must have turned out pretty disturbing, judging from the nauseous look that passed over his face.

"Just get off me."

I finally separated myself from Roxas, but not before I got a whiff of something that smelled like cake mix. I blinked and sniffed again. The smell was definitely coming from Roxas. He gave me a quizzical look. "What the hell?"

I stared down thoughtfully at him. "Where'd you come from before you went to get me?" I asked.

"I told you, I was at work." He looked a little self-conscious. I felt something evil stirring in me. "What's it matter?"

I scratched my chin. "Where do you work?"

Roxas looked vandalised. "I don't need to tell you that!" He hefted his knapsack into a more comfortable position, his right eye twitching slightly. "You'd laugh at me."

Now I _really_ wanted to know what he did. "No, I wouldn't," I said as earnestly as I could. Roxas pulled off a very impressive rendition of my mom's 'bitch, please' look. I gave him a wounded look. "I'm being serious!"

"Che, my ass you are."

"C'mon! I'll tell you something about me that'll probably make you laugh."

He perked up a bit, looking intrigued. "Fine. Let's hear it."

I looked upward, trying to think of something not _too_ personal, but something that still sounded sort of retarded, so he wouldn't feel so insecure if his job really _was_ just that lame. "'Kay," I said slowly. I lowered my voice so the little pigtailed brat down the street wouldn't hear us over her wails for 'kitty!'.

"You know those Backstreet Boy CDs from the other day?" I whispered conspiratorially. "The ones that you were helping me sort?"

Roxas quirked an eyebrow. "Kind of hard to forget," he snorted.

I chose to ignore that comment. "Well, you remember how I told you they were my mom's?"

Roxas smirked. "Actually, you told me they were your sister's. Then you told me they were your mom's."

"Do you want me to fucking tell you my secret or what?!" I snapped. Roxas held up his hands as a gesture of peace, but his face still carried that smug expression. Bastard.

I swallowed, and looked around to make sure people weren't eavesdropping on us. "Well, those CDs…they weren't actually my mom's. They're mine."

Roxas stared at me blankly for a moment before obnoxiously saying, "_And_?"

I blinked. "And what?"

He looked almost pissed. "And what's the big secret?"

"That _was_ the secret!" I sputtered. _What, is he deaf or something?_ I wondered derisively.

Roxas gave me a rather blasé look. "That's not really much of a secret, you know," he told me with an arrogant roll of his eyes.

"_Excuse me_?!" Goddamn it, I'll kill this punk! "I'm out here, bearing my _soul_ to you, and all you have for me are complaints?!"

"Stop being so dramatic. You sound like Ven."

OUCH.

"That," I said shakily, thoroughly horrified by his statement, "was uncalled for."

"Whatever." Roxas waved a hand flippantly. "You can embellish that all you like, but it really was obvious. I mean, come _on_. I figured that out the first time I saw those discs."

I glowered at him. "Well, tough! I already told you something, so now you have to tell me where you work. You can't back out, you bastard."

"Fine." Roxas leaned forward and I bent slightly, so we were almost nose to nose. An oddly calm smile spread across his face. "I work in a bakery."

I felt like smacking him. "I'd already guessed that!" I growled. When Roxas cocked his head in confusion, I continued. "I smelled cake mix on you."

Roxas gave me a slightly disturbed look. "Why were you sniffing me?"

"It wasn't on purpose!" I hissed, tugging on my hair. "I just caught a whiff of it!"

Roxas gave me a last doubtful look before shaking his head. "Whatever, man. Anyway, the point is that you gave me a crappy secret, so I gave you a crappy answer. We're even."

"No, we're not!" I insisted. "I gave you fucking specifics! You weren't specific! You didn't say _which_ goddamn bakery you work at!"

"Figure it out! You have a brain—right?" A smirk wormed its way onto his face, and I couldn't stop the grin that spread across mine.

"Shut up, asshole!" I returned with an affectionate swat. "There's, like, a million bakeries on Postern alone. How am I supposed to find yours?"

He shrugged nonchalantly and started strolling back down the block. "That's not my problem," he said happily. He peered over his shoulder and tossed a bright smile at me. A smile that was a little to sweet to be natural. "C'mon, Axel!"

I stomped after him, muttering darkly under my breath.

A couple stores down was an unusually wholesome setup. The shop was a pale shade of frosted pink and seemed to glimmer amidst the mismatching stores. Its glass windows had a strange cellophane-like appearance to them in how light reflected off in waves of transparent rainbows. I wandered to the window, staring at my slightly distorted reflection in a state that treaded the line between awe and stupidity. Roxas followed me to the display window, a bemused grin on his face.

"I dunno, Axel," he said dubiously as he moved to stand beside me. His blue eyes were light with humour. "Although some of these dresses are very pretty, I don't think they're really right for you. And besides, everyone knows how goddamn expensive Andalasia Fashion is…"

I glared sourly at him. It was true. I was gaping at the window of a dress shop. I must've looked like some sort of aspiring cross dresser… (Insert facepalm.)

"Shut up, asshole," I said hotly, glaring back into the window and scowling darkly at the blush on my reflection. Stupid glass must be dirty. "I was just admiring the artistry put into the embroidery and beading."

Roxas smirked. "I'm sure you were."

"You know," I turned back to him, a wicked look on my face. "Only _real_ men can walk into a chick's clothes store without feeling a particularly vicious stab to their masculinity," I told him, eyes carefully blank.

His eyes narrowed. He probably saw where this was going. "What are you saying?"

I smiled pleasantly at him. "Why don't we browse a little?"

Roxas smiled wanly back up at me. "Sounds lovely."

We both stomped into the store, a silver bell tinkling as the door swung open and shut. The second the door closed, a huge, white, sparkly _pouf_ came flying at us.

"He_llo_!" the pouf gushed, putting extra emphasis on the 'llo!'. Its voice was oversaturated in sugar. I could practically feel my teeth rot as it spoke. "It makes me _so_ happy that you two handsome young men have found an interest in our store!"

Me and Roxas exchanged uncertain glances before looking back at the pouf. The pouf was actually a young woman in an elaborate and rather…_poufy_ white gown. Her bright blue eyes were freakishly large, and her hair was red, but not my kind of red. It was that strawberry-blonde sort of red. Her hair had a gentle wave to it and had been done up with a dainty silver tiara perched on top of her curls. She looked like a princess. Albeit an oddly cheerful one.

"My name is Giselle of Andalasia," she told us with joyous precision as she curtsied. "Will you be my friends?"

Roxas gave me a startled look and I cracked a small, slightly distressed grin at her. "Suuure…" I said uneasily, just a little bit freaked out. Giselle looked ecstatic and clapped her hands in delight.

"_Won_derful!" she cried, her face lighting up. "This is such a pleasure! What, may I ask, are your names?"

"Uh, I'm Roxas of Radiant Garden and he's Axel of Junon."

Giselle curtsied again, her face glowing in humble adoration. "I am most _hon_oured, good Sir Roxas and _kind_ Sir Axel." Her eyes shone with hope as she brought her trembling hands to her mouth. "Have you perhaps come to rescue me?"

Roxas scratched his head, and a small cloud of flour and cake mix floated into the air. "From what?" he wondered. "Minimum wage?"

Giselle giggled, demurely covering her mouth. "You're so funny!" she cried, and Roxas quirked an eyebrow. "No, no, Sir Roxas. I've got a _curse_ on me!"

I smiled. "You don't say."

She nodded emphatically, eyes wide. "Oh, I'm afraid so! I cannot leave my post in this charming store until my prince—my _One True Love_—comes and sweeps me away and we are wed!" She sighed dreamily, swooning into the arms of a mannequin wearing a royal blue satin dress that was rippled with silver beads. "Only then will I be free, once we partake in True Love's Kiss. And then," she smiled euphorically, "we'll live Happily Ever After."

I was about to cut the charade and laugh at the loon, but I stopped when I saw the expression on Roxas' face. It was the strangest thing. He was smiling. Not that evil Ven smile—that one that signifies instant death and utter destruction. Not that 'haha, you're such an idiot!' one, either. This one was just…generally happy. And so I decided not to do anything stupid that might make it go away.

"That sounds wonderful, Giselle," Roxas said sincerely, that same smile lingering on his lips.

Giselle beamed at him. "Oh, but _does_n't it?" she gushed, her arms snaking through the air in oddly sporadic, yet, graceful movements. "I can hardly wait!" she told us.

"But how will you know when you meet your prince?" I asked, genuinely curious about her adamant beliefs.

She just smiled brightly at me. "I'll just know," she said simply.

Roxas closed his eyes, that same, soft smile still there. "I hope that day comes soon for you, Giselle."

The girl smiled and straightened, prying herself away from the mannequin. "I hope it does, too, Sir Roxas. I pray it does with all of my heart," she told him, her hands lying over her chest. "And I pray that your prince comes for you, too."

Roxas' smile cracked and a tick formed in his left eye.

Wait. _His_ prince? I snickered.

"I hope that, too, Roxas," I told him loudly, thumping him on the shoulder. He glared hatefully at me. "Don't worry, though. You're pretty hot, so your unfathomably sexy prince'll definitely _come_ for you," I drawled, loving the flustered and mortified looks that passed over his face with the innuendos.

"Drop dead, Axel. _Drop dead_."

Giselle looked slightly distressed. "Oh, _please_ don't fight! You two are comrades! You mustn't fight!"

I nodded solemnly. "I agree, Giselle. Roxas really should work out his issues."

She nodded enthusiastically. "Pre_cise_ly!" she cried, doing that weird thing of hers where she put emphasis on a specific syllable. She smoothed out her intricate ball gown and looked at us expectantly. "So, my noble sirs, now that we are all well-acquainted; how may I be serving you today?"

I stared at her in dumb silence for a moment. "We're not here to buy anything, you know."

Giselle looked rather confused. "I don't understand," she said slowly, furrowing her brows in thought. "Why would you two be in here, then? _Sure_ly you desire one of our fine gowns? We had a study done—there's a twenty-one percent greater chance that your dreams will come true while you're wearing one of our dresses…" She made a vague gesture to all the detailed costumes around the room. She looked concerned. "Are they, perhaps, not of a high enough quality to suit your occasion? That's it, isn't it?!" She looked ready to cry. "I'm terribly sorry! The animals and I have tried our best, but it really gets rather difficult when all your fabric comes from old _draperies_ and _carpets_! It's been absolutely _ghastly_ trying to find good cloth! We'd have to pay for it from our salaries, and we already had to let go of two of our best mice last Thursday, and we _really_ can't afford to—"

"It's not that they're not beautiful," I said hastily, cutting her rant off. (Animals? _Mice_? What the fuck was she talking about?) "They're gorgeous, it's just that…" I looked desperately at Roxas.

"It's just that…" Roxas' hands writhed nervously as he tried to shush the girl and stop her tears. "It's just that they don't look like…they'd fit us!" he finished quickly, his face flushing as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

Giselle's tears immediately ceased flowing. She peered up at us through thick lashes, eyes sympathetic. "Well," she said slowly, her voice wavering slightly, "I could always take your measurements and custom design them for you, if you'd like. That way they'd definitely fit."

I felt like screaming. "Giselle, we don't want dresses."

"Well, certainly not for a young lady, I'm sure. But, I think this sapphire one would look absolutely _gorgeous_ on Sir Roxas." She scurried over and pulled out a glittering, flowing gown with puffed sleeves and a jewel-encrusted corset; the skirt was made up of gauzy, angular cuts of blue fabric that had been layered into opacity, and shaped into a smooth, full skirt, expertly stitched with different shades of blue and silver beads. She showed it to us, holding it up against Roxas. "Look, it's perfect! It matches his eyes!" She pushed it into Roxas' hands. "It might fit, since you're not bulky and have a rather gentle, lithe shape, but I can always adjust it if you want!" She looked incredibly excited with her find. "You'll look magnificent in it! Would you like to try it on?"

Roxas' eyes (which, interestingly, did match the colour of the dress superbly) were wide and practically falling out of his head. I glanced at the dress being held against him, briefly imagining him in it. I smirked a little inwardly. Giselle was right. It would look good on him. (And I was being completely serious—NO JOKE.)

"Um," Roxas stammered, still looking totally shell-shocked, "we're not here to buy dresses for ourselves. I don't…I don't wear _dresses_…"

"You don't?" Giselle blinked owlishly at him, uncomprehending. "But how else do you expect to attract a prince?" she wondered, looking completely confused.

* * *

"**You know," I said slowly, trying to smother my snickers**, "You really shouldn't have upset Giselle like that, Roxas. She looked like you broke her heart when you told her you wouldn't buy the dress."

Roxas swerved around, death glare well in place. "Screw you," he snapped spitefully. "You didn't seem too thrilled when she asked you what size _you_ wanted."

I twitched. "Don't change the subject. You know that was completely different."

Roxas grinned and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. My bad."

We turned the corner and headed into our cul-de-sac. It was close to eight o'clock, and the sun was starting to dip behind the trees, staining the sky with strawberry pink and burnt orange. The lighting gave off the impression that Roxas' and Marluxia's houses were on fire. I mentioned this to Roxas, and he told me I had an overactive imagination.

I was about to turn and head up my front walk, when Roxas grabbed me by the arm. "Dude," he said. "Where're you going?"

I stared, caught off guard. "Uh, back home?"

"I don't think so." A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth as he led me away and toward his own house. "I have something to show you."

I let him take me away, and we slunk along to his side yard, just beneath his bedroom windows and Roxas proudly presented the drainpipe to me. "Up you go," he said brusquely. "We've gotta get up there quickly, or we'll miss it."

"Miss what?"

Roxas gave me an annoyed look. "Don't ask questions, damn it. Up you go!"

I recoiled. "No way!" I exclaimed. "What if I fall?"

"I'll be down here to catch you, _princess_," he said snidely. I glared at him. "C'mon, Axel. You're gonna miss it at this rate! Up you go!"

"Hell no," I said firmly. "There's no way this is safe."

"Fine, then!" He threw his arms in the air, exasperated. "I'll go up first." And Roxas went scaling up the drainpipe with an ease that betrayed lots of practice. He climbed up until he could reach his left windowsill and perch on it, using it as a sturdy foothold; then he flipped the window open and crawled inside. He poked his head out, his blond hair glowing in the afternoon light. "C'mon, Axel!" he bellowed. "Up you go!"

I groaned and reluctantly started clamouring up the drainpipe, not wanting this incident to be retold to Ven as a point of further humiliation. The drainpipe was, thankfully, very sturdy and held up my weight with no protest as I worked my way up. When I finally made it to the window, I let out a sigh of exhaustion as Roxas leaned out to help me in. "Is there any particular reason why we couldn't have used the front door?" I asked grumpily as I wiped my sweaty palms on the thighs of my jeans.

I looked around the bedroom. It was small and completely unlike what I'd expected. From Roxas' pretty subdued dress style and all the black and white cheques, I'd been predicting something of that nature. This was from the complete opposite side of the spectrum. The walls and ceiling were painted butter yellow and spattered with orange sponge prints, and the room as a whole was very bright and welcoming. Roxas' desk was buried beneath piles of clutter and crumpled papers and sheet music. His bookshelf was home to a clashing collection of works, varying from the classics to modern thrillers to sudoku books. Heaps of laundry littered the floor, and a white t-shirt was draped over a feebly glowing, star-shaped lamp. Upon closer inspection, it was clear that the shirt was from Disney World and would fit a small child, and the humongous autographs that adorned it were from none other than the Disney characters themselves. I fought back a snicker. Roxas glanced over at me and rolled his eyes.

"I got that at Disney World when I was three," he told me. "My pop was on a mission to make sure that Ven, Naminé, and I all got everyone's signatures."

I carefully lifted the shirt, examining the autographs. "I'd say you were pretty successful."

Roxas snorted. "Yeah? Well, we take those t-shirts back every year and hunt down any new characters and harass them until we get their signatures." He smiled fondly. "Pop wants us to frame the t-shirts, but Dad always manages to prevent such humiliation from happening."

I laughed and replaced the t-shirt. I looked back over to where he was. "So," I said, "You never answered my earlier question: why couldn't we use the front door?"

"This is faster," Roxas explained as he moved to his other window and unlocked it. "Besides, I figured you'd want to avoid any confrontations with Ven. And, geez, if we ended up meeting my parents…" He shuddered. "We'd be stuck talking to them until the next _Castle Soul_ game came out."

I bemoaned the slow development of C'leenix and fell back into the mess of Roxas' unmade bed, sinking into his orange comforter and sheets. Roxas chuckled as he opened the window. He jerked his head at me. "Stop being such a drama queen, and get your ass over here."

I sauntered over. "Geez, Roxas, I thought we agreed I was a princess…"

"My bad. You can't be queen until I marry you." He crawled out the window and disappeared from view.

I nodded sagely. "That's right." I stuck my head out the window. Roxas had climbed from his window onto the roof, which was a plateau beside his window, and sloped outward beneath this level. He was standing tall on the roof, looking over at the horizon line. When he saw me looking, an annoyed look passed over his face.

"Hurry up, Axel," he said loudly. A smirk formed. "Up you go."

I frowned at him and heaved myself out the window and onto the roof, standing beside him. I looked around. "What're we looking for?"

Roxas sighed and grabbed my chin, forcing me to look in the direction of the sunset. "_That_ is what we came here for." He dropped his hand and I stared at the mix of colours, jaw falling open.

"Oh…"

In Midgar, you couldn't really see the sun. It was so heavily polluted, you know? In all honesty, this was probably my first sunset—the first one I'd bothered to watch, anyway. And it was…_amazing_. There were no clouds—the sky was completely empty, yet overflowing at the same time. The orange was only a thin film around what was left of the sun, clinging to the golden ball for light. And that same strawberry pink had spread and was slowly fading into pale lavender before deepening into violet and navy, before completely extinguishing into black, pinpricks of twinkling stars glittering overhead.

I drank it all in, that sight, admiring how it never stayed the same, the colours changing and deepening and blending with each passing second, the stars shining brighter and brighter.

"Whoa," I mumbled, eyes wide.

Roxas shifted beside me. "It's a lot nicer in Twilight Town," he muttered absently, toeing the roof. "But, y'know, I thought you might like it… I mean, Dad told me that since you'd grown up in Midgar, you probably didn't get to see many sights like this, and, well, I guess that—"

"Roxas?"

He blinked and looked up at me, his golden hair illuminated in the dying light. His eyes were hesitant. "Yeah?"

I loosely threw an arm around him. "Thanks."

* * *

**The Afterword:** HEYY! It's finally done! XD That took a long time, eh?

Well, it's a relatively long-ish chapter…does that appease you momentarily? _:hopeful:_

A lot of this stuff (meaning the whole chapter) wasn't planned. A lot of the events and elements that arose were sort of spur of the moment. Like, that whole Andalasia Fashion thing, for example. I just saw _Enchanted_ last night, and I was like "WAO, these guys hafta be incorporated! 8D "

I think the only thing that I'd had the general idea of was the Moonbucks setting. I'd had the people who worked there all figured out… Uh, but Terra was never going to be that…_melodramatic_… XDD

The ending hadn't really been planned, either. I just wanted it to end…nicely, I guess. Not the same sort of crack-ish ending as the first, but something a little warmer, I guess. I mean, these two are gonna get hitched eventually, eh? :D

:0 Honestly, a lot of the stuff that gets included in these chapters is there because they came along into my life while I happened to be writing the chapter. Like _The World Ends with You_ (to them, _The World Terminates with You_) and _Enchanted_. :P I wouldn't be surprised if the crew from _Narnia_ showed up in the near future. 8D I just saw _Prince Caspian_ last night after my school district's concert of extreme awesome (I think I did a pretty sick job on bells and keyboard XD ), and OH MY GOD. XDDD _:fangirls:_ The Pevensies are HOT!! XDDD

_:regains composure:_ So, yeah, just don't be surprised if they pop up in the next chapter or so. XD My belief with this fic is that if I can fit an element of Disney or Final Fantasy or whatever in, I will. XD 'Cause I'm a retard like that.

Um, so… in other news, there's an "_It's Like Hell_" related poll in my profile. Basically, if you're curious to see some of the details behind the inspiration—pictures of places, floor plans, music, etc.—you should go vote. It's like, I got asked by a few people "how'd you come up with this shit?" And truthfully, the answer is that you can't make this shit up. XP A lot of this is based off real life. I grew up in a pretty funky place, and it clearly made some sort of an impact. (But you'll see more of that much later on. I have a KH high school-type AU in the planning, but I don't intend on writing that out until I'm done with this one.) Anyway, if you vote to see the stimuli, you'll get some amped up power point or something… :0

So, yeah. There you have it. This chapter is FINISHED. 8D (Finally!)

Hm… I think that's all I have to say. :D Hope you guys enjoyed! Tell me what you thought! :D


	4. Stacy's Mom

**Summary:** AU. We moved to get away from the craziness of city life. But Mom didn't know that moving us out to the suburbs would land me with the hot Roxas, his psycho twin who wants to castrate me, and their freaky man-parents. (AkuRoku RikuSora Zemyx Terra/Ven & more)**  
Disclaimer:** I find it incredibly wounding to both my pride and my ego to have to keep disclaiming everything. So, just for that, I won't. (No, I don't own KH or Disney. And the lyrics are from Bloodhound Gang. And…yeah.)**  
Rant:** LAME. I started writing the first three paragraphs or so during a retardedly hot day in school—no joke, it was at least 35 degrees Celsius. And it was _sticky_. It was fucking nasty. But, naturally, I started getting aggravated with everything, and I pushed my notebook away for a good month. D: I wanted to have this out by the end of June, but I ended up postponing writing this chapter in favour of finishing the fourth chapter of "_Twilight_", because, let's face it, that seriously needed to be updated. _:shot:_**  
Notes:** Congrats to Tyrk who correctly identified the quote from Stargate SG-1. :D And yes, Jack did set the record for the universe's longest golf shot. XD I love that episode.  
And thank you guys for over 100 reviews!! D8 I thought I'd bust an artery when I saw I'd gone over. T-T If only I were better for you people…  
There is some semi-religious context included in the form of an argument. I simply ask that you not take any personal offence to this. I am aware that the religion "bashed" bears similarities to a faith, but this is not intentional. Rather, it's a play on words and details throughout FFVII. There's no offence meant.

* * *

**Started:** July 19, 2008.**  
Completed:** September 12, 2006.

* * *

**It's Like Hell**_  
(…except worse.)_  
Stacy's Mom_  
(…__to quote _Signfeld_, "They're real. And they're spectacular.")_

* * *

**Have you ever noticed that it's on those retardedly hot days**—on days when it's like hell—that everyone seems to demand the most from you? It's seriously fucked up, and let me tell you, on days like that, all I want to do is sleep. But _noooooooo_… Mom, that bitch, just _had_ to pick the afternoon that it was a zillion degrees outside for me to start hacking the lawn back down to a manageable size.

You know what, Mom? _FUCK YOU_!

"Axel, stop being such a whiny brat!" Mom barked as she beat me with a spatula. "Get off your ass, you lazy bum!"

I rolled over onto my stomach and bit back another swear. I had been camped out on the linoleum floor of our kitchen, 'cause it was just _too_ goddamn hot everywhere else. Our AC was busted, and Reno's been too busy with his _new job_ to bother with making sure I don't die of heat stroke, and I haven't a clue how to fix the stupid thing.

"I dun wanna," I moaned as Mom nudged me in the side with her foot. "Mom, it's like a zillion degrees inside…"

"Well," Mom said waspishly, "maybe some fresh air will do you some good, seeing as it's 'a zillion degrees' inside the house."

"But, _Mooom_," I whined, "If it's a zillion degrees in here, it'll be a bazillion outside, and…"

Mom smacked me again with her spatula. "Stop complaining," she ordered. "It is not a bazillion degrees outside. Anyway, when I lived on Destiny Islands, it was 'a bazillion degrees' every day, but I never complained! My family didn't even own a paper fan, let alone air conditioner!"

"But, Mom," I said, trying to reason with the crazed woman. "Gramma and Grandpa are psychotic, and I distinctly remember Great Gramma saying that she only moved out and back to Hollow Bastion because Grandpa didn't want to admit that he'd screwed up the ventilation system while trying to renovate the house. And remember last Christmas?" I continued blithely, "I seem to recall us going down to visit Gramma and Grandpa, only to end up at the Atlantis General Hospital because a _certain someone_ named Kairi van Alderliesten got _heat stroke_ and fainted."

Mom flushed a shade of pink that matched her tank top and gritted her teeth in aggravation. "Axel," she snarled in a way that reminded me of a rabid dog, "You're really lucky that beating your children is illegal—"

"Then what do you call what you were just doing?" I interrupted, genuinely curious. "Y'know, with the spatula?"

She hit me again with the spatula for good measure. I started to say something snarky, but she held up the evil kitchen utensil in warning, ready to strike again. I wisely chose to shut up. She smiled the eerily pleasant smile that she'd always reserved for our landlady back in Midgar. "Now," she said, sounding considerably calmer. "I have an appointment with the local locksmith. I need to make more copies of our house keys for us." I nodded in agreement. It was true. We only had two keys, one was with Mom, the other with Reno.

"I'm thinking of getting a copy for Sora and Riku," Mom went on. "They're already working on getting us our own key to their house—how cool is that?" she suddenly burst, eyes sparkling as she spun around in a pirouette, her red hair fanning out as she clapped her hands together and stared off into the distance like some cheesy heroine from one of those lame movies. "It'll be just like in those sitcoms!" she said dreamily, eyes misting over. "Y'know, like in _Acquaintances_? Or _Signfeld_?" She broke free from her trance and scoffed. "Like people in Hollow Bastion _actually_ leave their doors unlocked all the time!"

I blinked, not expecting her complete jump of tangent. I coughed awkwardly, drawing her attention back to me. "So, do I have to do the gardening today?" I asked hopefully, making my big puppy eyes at her. "I was thinking of doing it on a day when Marluxia could help out, and he's working today, and…" I let my voice trail away and I let my lower lip wibble for good measure. Mom gave me a thoughtful look, pity slipping into her large violet eyes.

"Well…"

I threw my self-respect out the window and whimpered pathetically, dropping to my knees and full-out grovelling at her white tennis shoes. Mom winced, averting her gaze from the disgusting display I'd concocted.

"Oh, geez," she groaned, clapping a hand over her eyes. "Fine! Fine! You don't have to garden today."

"HELL YEAH!" I jumped to my feet in celebration. "Thank you, Mom! Thank you so much! You're amazing! And beautiful! And young! And not a lard-ass! And not a total failure at life! And—"

"Oh, shut up." Mom whacked me one last time with the spatula before shoving it into her seashell-printed purse. She shouldered the bag and gave me an expectant look. "Just walk me outside and pick up the mail, all right? Then you can melt your brain—or what's left of it, I guess—with whatever mindless video games you've got."

"Sounds good." This was sounding really ideal, right? So, I followed her to the front door, pulled on my decrepit red Chucks and even held the door open to let her pass. Oh yeah, I was kissing ass big time. (Literally. Mom's ass, as everyone knows, is larger than life.)

Mom gave me a toothy grin and waited for me to exit the house. And when I did, she watched me head down to the mailbox—this rusting black box that _seriously_ needed to be replaced—and nearly break its door off opening the damn thing to pull out a bunch of shitty bills, a fashion magazine (Andalasia Fashion. It just figures), the month's edition of _National Demographic_, and an out-of-place looking copy of today's paper. I took the mail back to my mom, like a good little boy, and came to find her, still on the stoop, locking up the house like it was Fort Knox. I stared at her.

"What're you doing?" My mouth felt like cotton as she spun around to face me, her mouth stretched up into a slightly insane grin that showed all her teeth.

"I'm locking up," she told me as she pocketed her key. "I can't afford to have little suburban urchins breaking into our house while I'm gone," she said as she headed over to the parked Mom-mobile, casting me a look that just sang of my apparent stupidity.

"But…" I gawked at her. "How am I supposed to go inside the house…?"

She paused in the middle of fastening her seatbelt to give me a thoughtful look, her eyes unusually large. "Yeah," she said slowly, her mouth falling open. She stared upwards for a moment before blinking. "I guess you can't. How about that, Axel," she remarked, and her face twisted from that vacant expression to one of pure evil. She flashed me that same toothy grin and slammed the car door. "It looks like you'll be stuck outside, doing the lawn work until I return. How about that." She revved up the car and pulled out of the driveway. She stuck her head out her window and gave me a plastic smile and blew a kiss. "Make it look nice!" And she drove away at Mach 7.30002.

I'm being totally serious. The sound barrier totally snapped.

So, I kinda stood there, sort of in shock, just watching the heat waves float off the road and letting the sun bake me to a crisp. After a few minutes of gaping dumbly at nothing, I raised my eyes and nearly let out a manly screech at the burning sensation of the fucking afternoon sunshine stabbing me violently in the eyes. I sprinted across our dead, dead, dead lawn and dove for shelter under a sorry-looking tree, nearly falling flat on my face in the dry grass in the process. I didn't move, and just lay there, dead grass in my mouth. And in that moment, I realised—not without a sense of sullen irony—that my mom had been right. It wasn't a bazillion degrees outside.

It was at least a _gazillion_.

And it was fucking _humid_. I don't think I was even sweating—it evaporated that quickly. Like, the air was so stuffy that it was difficult to breathe. It would all get caught in my lungs and I couldn't get it down or out. All of my limbs were dead useless and totally laden down with exhaustion. And my mouth was so _dry_…

My vision was going kinda blurry, too. I rolled over onto my back and squinted off into the distance, trying to make sense of the fuzzy blobs around me. Oh, wait, haha, those're just the houses… I furrowed my brow in confusion. _Hey, wait…_

What the hell was going on with Marluxia's house? Since when were there two?

I blinked. _Oh_. Wait, I was just seeing double. Although, that still didn't really explain why the house was floating… And what was that thing waving in front of my face? Was that a helicopter? Since when do helicopters fly sideways…and so damn close to people…? GASP, maybe it's a futuristic tiny helicopter from Rocket Town!! Mom did always say that they were making freaky new weapons of mass destruction…

"Axel…? Axel?"

_Heyyyy_! The helicopter can taaalk!!

I grinned stupidly at the futuristic tiny helicopter. "Helloooo!!" I giggled and reached out a hand to poke it.

"Oh, boy." The helicopter disappeared with a sigh and suddenly the whole world _shifted_ (FUCKING VERTIGO) and my head was lolling about on my shoulders as the helicopter hefted me to my feet and led me away. "C'mon, kid, you've gotta get out of the sun…"

My eyes were kinda unfocused, but I could just make out the sight of dead grass getting trampled beneath my feet—then suddenly the grass was green, and then it was gone, and all I could see was this freaky face—_is that Mickey Mouse_?!

There was the far off sound of a door creaking open, and all this _cold_, _cold_ air came rushing at me. The helicopter nudged me forward, and it was like heading straight into an icebox or Christmas Town or something. It was like _heaven_. The air was so much thinner and I could breathe again…

"Axel?"

I blinked and lifted a hand and rubbed blearily at my eyes. "Where am I?" I mumbled, stumbling a little and nearly collapsing into a chair. There was a clink of glass on glass, and when I raised my eyes, there was a glass sitting in front of me filled with fucking _ice water_.

I think I must've made quite a retarded spectacle of myself; I practically jumped on top of that glass and downed it in such a frenzy…

There was an amused chuckle, and the glass became refilled—and I chugged it again. We repeated this several times, before I finally left the glass alone, slumped down against the table, and felt relatively rehydrated. (And sane.)

"Feeling better?"

I jumped—I'd totally forgotten about my saviour! "Oh, my God, you have _no idea_ how grateful I am—" I looked up to see Riku, in all his rainbow glory, peering down at me with concern in his aqua eyes. And all I could think about was _HOTHOTHOT_. _HOSHIT, UP CLOSE, HE IS REALLY FUCKING HOT_.

And this is a very unhealthy thought to think about your neighbour. Your neighbour who is your mother's friend. Your neighbour who is gay and happily married with three kids to your mother's other friend. Your neighbour whose kid is your best (read: only) friend in a _very_ sketchy neighbourhood that you don't know _shit_ about.

I let out a stream of verbal diarrhoea and Riku raised an eyebrow at me. (_Noooo!! Now he thinks I inherited the stupid gene from Mom!_) I chuckled nervously and sank a little in my seat. "Uh…th-thanks for saving me!" I spat out, feeling all the water I'd regained start dripping down the back of my neck in the form of sweat. I glued my eyes to the round table, distracting myself with semi-not-really-false interest in the fact that the round table I was seated at was sort of like a giant picture frame. It had a really sick collage of family photographs arranged neatly beneath a clean sheet of glass, which served as the tabletop. I quickly busied myself with ogling a photograph depicting Roxas, Ven, and Naminé as children at the Disney Park. Like Roxas had said, they were all wearing the infamous autographed white t-shirts. Naminé must've taken a lot after Sora, because she looked extremely elated, while her brothers looked a tad less enthusiastic. Considering that they looked to be ten years of age, by this point, they'd probably seen everything in Disney a couple dozen times over.

Riku must've clued in on my plight or something, because he smirked this _evil_ smirk—I don't care if Roxas said it's impossible. Ven _definitely_ inherited that smirk!—and spun away, taking the pitcher of ice water with him. "Is there any particular reason why you were lying out on your front yard, completely delirious, in 45 degree weather?" he asked neutrally, bringing me hurtling back down to earth from Cloud Nine.

"Uh," I said lamely, "My mom locked me out of the house in a convoluted attempt to get me to do the lawn."

Riku snorted. "That's the sort of thing Kairi used to try on me 'n' Sora when we were kids." He smiled fondly. "She's very lazy, that woman."

He replaced the pitcher in the photo-covered, old-school, bright red fridge and moved to a nearby cupboard and pulled out a bright yellow Tupperware container. He settled back down in the seat across from me and removed the lid of the container. The unmistakable smell of oatmeal-raisin cookies escaped into the air. I think I drooled a little.

Riku took a cookie for himself and offered me the box. I eagerly took one and sank my teeth into pure, oatmealy heaven. The cookies were obviously homemade—they weren't dry or hard. They were chewy and soft and that friggin' hint of cinnamon gave it the most awesome kick _ever_. Like, that cookie seriously replaced all unholy lust in me and just transformed it all into sheer gluttony. I gave Riku a wide-eyed look as I took another cookie.

"These might just be the greatest things on the planet," I said sincerely as I shoved the second cookie in my mouth. "Who made them?"

Riku nibbled on his cookie and looked mildly amused. "If you want them, you can take them. There are always too many cookies in this house." He chewed and swallowed. I determinedly ignored his pale, smooth throat. "Roxas baked them," he told me, and my eyes immediately flickered back up to his face—LOOK AWAY!

"Really?" I asked, perking up at the mention of Roxas. "I mean, he did tell me he worked at a bakery, but—"

"Did he?" Riku looked generally interested, his silver eyebrows in danger of disappearing behind his fringe and into his hairline. His eyes took on this far-off look as he said, "Roxas is generally very self-conscious about his job. I'm kind of surprised he told you…he normally doesn't like to speak about it—even at home."

I was honestly surprised. "Why?" I asked as I took a third cookie. "If I could bake like this, I'd be using my skills at every possible moment," I told Riku. "Like, to bribe people or something."

Riku grinned. "That's what Ven says, too."

I think I choked a little from being told that Ven and I shared views. "O-Oh," I coughed as I reached for my glass of water. "Where is everyone?" I asked after I took a sip.

"All over," Riku replied. "I don't have work today—I'm an astrophysicist, by the way. Sora is at some 'top secret' C'leenix meeting at his office,—Roxas told me you two passed it the other day—Naminé is upstairs writing or drawing or something…" He waved a hand flippantly and gave me a rather perplexed look. "She's always hiding in her room," he told me. "I don't question it, because her Uncle Cloud—he's Sora's older brother—was a bit of a recluse at her age, too, but I do wonder what she's doing up there." He shrugged. "She's a bit quirky, though."

"Is it hard taking care of a girl?" I wondered, surprising myself with the question. "I mean, you and Sora are both guys, and, well…" The question died in my mouth and I quickly helped myself to another cookie.

Riku scratched his chin thoughtfully. "It's actually not been that difficult," he admitted. "To be truthful, raising Roxas and Ven has been more of a challenge—especially Roxas." Riku sighed. "That kid doesn't like to talk." He chuckled lightly. "He certainly didn't get that from Sora," he said with a warm grin. "Nah, Roxas has been the hardest to work with, hands down."

"For real? I would've thought Ven to be the problem child—no offence."

Riku brushed it off. "Ven's volatile," he confessed, "but in terms of parenting, he's much easier to understand." He shifted his position from reclining back in his seat to leaning forward, elbows propped on the tabletop. "Ven is the kind of person who makes his feelings public. Very public."

I snorted in agreement and Riku smirked a little. "He's also much more open," Riku continued. "In general, anyway. When I think about it, Roxas is probably the quietest of the three of those monsters."

I grinned. "And you know what they say about the quiet ones…"

Riku's expression grew thunderous, and I quickly silenced myself. "Watch your back," he said flatly, giving me a slightly freaky look that was reminiscent of Ven's 'die in a hole, fool' look. "Don't mess around with my kid," he warned me, voice dark and morose. "Roxas is a good kid, and if you even _think_ about—"

"Oh, Dad, stop trying to scare him off," Naminé murmured as she slunk into the kitchen, dressed in a white tank top and white Bermuda shorts, and primly snatched a cookie from the Tupperware. "It's not like you can disprove that 'quiet one' theory, anyway. You were the quiet one among your friends, weren't you?"

Riku frowned reprovingly at his daughter. "Naminé," he muttered, "have a little interest in your brother's preservation." He gave me a pointed look. "I have to make sure that Roxas doesn't end up hurt."

I stared at him, cookie falling out of my hand. What the hell is going on?!

Naminé sighed wearily and gave Riku a disapproving look. "But, Dad, if you keep this up, you'll scare everyone away…"

He smirked at her. "Caught on, have you?" Naminé released another exasperated sigh before turning to me.

"Are you looking for Roxas?" she asked, ignoring her father's unhappy expression.

I picked up my fallen cookie. "Well," I said slowly, "that really wasn't what I came here for…"

She looked surprised for some reason. "Then what are you here for?"

I blinked. "I got locked out of my house," I said lamely. Strangely enough, Naminé looked fairly disappointed. I nervously crammed the rest of my cookie into my mouth.

Riku was frowning, too. "Well," he said at last, "have you got anything better to do until Kairi returns?"

I flushed a little and shook my head. "No," I admitted sheepishly. "Do you mind me hanging around until then?" I asked awkwardly. "I'll go find somewhere else to stay if it is…" Not that I knew any other place to stay…

Riku raised his eyebrows and his lips quirked amusedly. "It's not a problem at all," he assured me. He gestured toward Naminé, "Naminé and I could always use a bit of outside company," he told me, and the blonde nodded energetically. "It's always very boring around here until Ven and Roxas return." He glanced up at the wall clock—Mickey Mouse, of course—it was only one. "Roxas isn't actually supposed to come home until about four, today, but I can call his boss up and tell him there's some kind of emergency or something…let him come home early."

Naminé nodded sagely. "Tell him the rum's gone. Mr. Sparrow always considers that an emergency," she advised her father as Riku went for the cordless phone: a large hunk of white plastic shaped like Mickey's gloved hand making the telephone hand sign.

Just before Riku could start dialling, the Mickey Mouse Club March exploded throughout the house and I almost jumped out of my seat. Naminé blinked impassively, clearly very used to this. "Oh," she said, scarily calm amidst the screeching piccolos or flutes or fifes or whatever they were. "We have a visitor." And she flounced away to the door to greet whoever it was.

Riku hadn't even batted an eyelash during the musical outburst and was patiently holding the glove-phone to his ear and was waiting for the bakery to pick up. His eyes lit up. "Hello, Joshamee," Riku said, annunciating each syllable clearly into the phone. "It's Riku Seelenfreund, Roxas' father." He paused for a second and rolled his eyes. "No," he said with a snigger, "I'm the other father. Sora's the one who speaks fluent Moogle."

_Moogle?!_

I boggled at this. Was it even _possible_ to speak Moogle?

"I need to speak with Jack," Riku continued. "There's been an incident at home and we need Roxas to hurry back… Yes, I know this is third time in two months. Please don't give me a hard time; this is important." He paused and nodded to himself, looking pleased. "Thank you. Yes, I'll hold."

"Dad?" Naminé was back, she was leaning against the wall and toeing the ground awkwardly, her pale brows knitted together in an expression that could only be concern. "There's a man at the door to see you…" Her voice trailed away and she didn't elaborate who, but Riku seemed to catch the drift and his eyes narrowed slightly.

"Axel," he addressed me sharply and tossed me the phone, which I only just caught as he stalked past me and toward the front door, Naminé's wide eyes following his beeline. "Tell Jack the rum's gone."

I nodded dumbly and didn't question him. He looked livid. I nervously pressed the phone against my ear and waited uneasily. After about a minute of hearing nothing but the faint crackle of static over the telephone and the muffled sound of Riku's sharp baritone, a male voice finally slurred over the phone line, "'llo?"

"Uh, hi!" I squeaked. "Is this Jack?"

There was a brief pause in which the man chuckled. "Well, luv, that depends on who's asking, eh?" The man had a heavy Port Royal accent—not the kind of Port Royal accent that spoke of the United Kingdoms of Hahrtz's navy or Spiran aristocracy, but a Port Royal _pirate_ accent. "But, at the expense of me own comfort, I'll grace ye with my name. This be Captain Jack Sparrow. At your service." I could almost visualise a wide grin filled with rotten teeth and a sweeping bow. "And, you know, this is _my_ bakery. If anyone named Hector tries to tell you otherwise, he's _lying_. Bloody wanker. This is my bakery. Mine. He's tried to steal it, you see—marooned me at a bake sale! But, no! This bakery is _mine_."

"Uh, right… Um…" I'd kind of lost my train of thought right after hearing him call himself 'captain.'

"How may I be helping you today? Might there be a cake we can provide for you? Our bakery is the best at customised cakes, as it were."

I cleared my throat. "Actually, I was hoping you'd be willing to let Roxas leave work now and come home."

Jack sounded rather bemused. "Let Roxy come home early? No can do, mate. Roxy's one of my best bakers and one of the most agreeable lads I've ever met; and good workers are plenty difficult to find and even more difficult to work with. Bit like cursed treasure, really. Doubtless they'll try and mutiny _again_…" There was a rumble of expletives in the background of the bakery. Clearly Jack had touched a nerve in several of his employees. Jack let out an exaggerated sigh. "What'd I tell you, mate? Can't trust anyone out here. Take my advise: never go into catering. Bloody shark orgy, savvy? Everyone's just looking to eat each other." He paused, as if considering his words. "Metaphorically speaking, that is. _Although_, there was this one time when I was invited as a guest to an island in the Caribbean…some chef or another wanted me to be guest of honour at some tribal feast he'd been preparing." Jack sighed wistfully. "Turns out that the islanders were cannibalistic and I was meant to be the main course at this feast. Bit of a downer, really…"

I was just gaping. Seriously, what was I supposed to say in response to that?

"Ah, well." Jack seemed rather impassive about his whole near-death experience. "Take what ye can, eh?"

"Yeah," I said suddenly, jerking back to reality. "That's exactly right. And I'll be taking Roxas, if you don't mind."

"See, mate, that's where you're wrong. Roxy's critical to the progress of me bakery, you see. Let's imagine the bakery is a boat, shall we? A very nice boat. A very fast, efficient boat with a cheap lease. Now, I'm the captain, savvy? I am in charge of all the little things that take place on the boat and I am all-knowing. Omnipotent, as it were, of all occurrences on the ship. There will not be a single barnacle clinging to the hull for dear life that I do not know about. Now, in order for a boat to get anywhere, it needs a good wind, eh? And that's all well and good and all if there is a favourable wind, but it's all quite pointless unless one has a good, strong sail. Now, in a bakery, the bakers are the sails, and Roxy, well, he's just the biggest sail of them all. He's the mast of the ship. And without Roxy, there's really not much breeze being caught. So, as I have just explained in my perfectly sound and not in the least bit irrelevant explanation that was most certainly worth explaining, we, as a bakery, are doomed without our mast. So, Roxy must stay here. Sorry, mate." He didn't sound very sorry. "Nothing I can do. I'm just a captain, you see. Be me as important and all-knowing as I am, I am still at the mercy of the sea and her bounty."

"I dunno," I said, happy to get a word in for once and put a brief lid on Jack's mindless rambling. "It doesn't necessarily need a mast."

"Say what?"

"Well," I continued, "why should your ship—"

"Boat," Jack corrected.

"Boat," I relented. "Why should your boat be dependent on the winds?" I asked, addressing the main cause of my distraction throughout his explanation. "You can just get a motor."

Jack was silent. Dumbstruck, I guess. When he finally spoke, his voice was awed. "I've never thought of it that way," he murmured. He hummed, perhaps in thought. Then he piped up again with a question that made me want to smash my head into a wall, "But wouldn't the motor be like the government-established bakery-slash-power plant that bakes rather questionable and aggravatingly stale yellow pound cakes that are secretly infused with chemicals and sawdust and flavourings as natural as a celebrity's breasts?"

I think something cracked, then. And it certainly wasn't anything physical.

"_Look_," I all but shouted into the phone. "I don't give a flying _fuck_ about the workings of your bakery or your ship—"

"Boat," Jack corrected with a bit of a petulant sigh.

"_BOAT_!!" I shrieked in agreement. "I just want Roxas to come home, damn it! The rum's gone!"

Jack was quiet for a moment. Then he let out a raspberry and drawled, "Well, why didn't ye say so in the _first place_, luv? I'll send little Roxy along with his wages, eh? He'll pick up some Elixir for you like the good little boy he is." There was a muffled roar of outrage in the background, and Jack snickered softly. "The lad'll be on his way before you can say 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious'." I could almost see a shit-eating grin in my head. "Ta!" And he hung up, leaving me gawking dumbly with the dial tone blaring in my ear.

Naminé soundlessly crossed the room to me and patted me reassuringly on the shoulder as I sat there gaping like an idiot. "Don't worry, Axel," she said kindly. "Mr. Sparrow has that sort of effect on everyone."

I let out a gargled sort of sob and turned off the phone. Naminé smiled encouragingly. "That's it, Axel," she said, sounding like an inspirational speaker. "Just let it all out." Her face was set in a very serene, tranquil expression. I supposed this was just part of her everyday life—she was probably very used to this Jack guy.

When I'd finally calmed down, I vaguely realised that Riku still had yet to return. "What happened to your dad?" I asked the blonde, sort of befuddled.

"Well…" Naminé looked a bit uneasy at my question. Her pale eyebrows knit together and her lilac eyes slid in the direction of the front door.

I figured she didn't want to say—that it was a personal matter. But, being as I'm kind of stupidly inquisitive, I immediately took this as an invitation to investigate and find out myself what was going on. So, I got to my feet and headed to the front door, Naminé silently following me.

The front door was closed, but after pulling back the gauzy curtains and peeking through a window, it became clear that Riku had stepped outside to speak with his visitor, rather than allowing the guest in. And this was probably a good thing, because Riku and an older man with long silver hair and a muscular build were in the middle of a heated discussion. Or an argument. A really loud argument.

I turned to Naminé, confused by the confrontation. "Who's that?" I asked her, unconsciously whispering.

Naminé chewed nervously on the inside of her cheek. "He's Dad's eldest brother," she explained softly. "Every time he shows up, he and Dad fight. Dad can't stand him at all."

And from looking at Riku, that much was obvious. Riku's posture was rigid and his hands were clenched in tense fists that shook at his sides, like he wanted nothing more than to punch the lights out of the man towering before him. The man was dressed up in a black leather frock coat, yet didn't appear to be melting or even breaking a sweat. His sheet of silver hair was even longer than Riku's, spilling down his back and to his thighs. And whereas Riku's aqua-coloured eyes were alight with rage, this man's eyes, which were identical in colour and shape, merely looked on impassively.

"Riku," the man said, his baritone voice deceptively quiet and relaxed. "Please cease this foolishness. Come, our Mother will be forgiving if you acknowledge your mistakes and return to—"

"Damn it, Sephiroth," Riku growled, "We've been through this time and again! I'm not returning to the goddamn church! When I renounced Jenova, I was renouncing her forever!"

Sephiroth blinked in a slow, almost sleepy way. "Little Brother," he murmured, "if only you could hear the nonsensical words slipping from your careless mouth. You would weep." He tilted his head back slightly, lifting his eyes up to the heavens and the scorching sun. "Jenova's messiah will be coming, and the messiah will do Jenova's bidding, taking control—"

"'Of the planet, and leading us through space to the Promised Land'," Riku scorned, raising an open palm above his head, mocking a religious gesture. He lowered his hand and sneered openly at his brother. "I've heard it all before, Sephiroth. And I'm here to tell you that it's all pure and utter _bullshit_."

Sephiroth gave Riku the smallest of frowns. "Jenova, our Mother, would be devastated to hear you say this, Riku. It pains me, too. But all can be transcended through the light of Jenova and her one-winged angel, and—"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Riku interrupted loudly, eyes wide and incredulous. "Do you seriously hear the words coming out of your mouth? Seph, you're totally bonkers. Even Loz, Yazoo, and Kadaj renounced Jenova _years ago_. Why the _hell_ are you so fucked up?!" He shook his head angrily, annoyed and furious. "Sephiroth. _Screw_ Jenova and fucking get your head out of the clouds! Jenova's Witnesses aren't gonna do anything for you. In fact, they've completely fucked you over." Riku sighed tiredly and rubbed his forehead, clearly irritated by the whole situation. "Seriously, Sephiroth… What happened? You used to be a pretty decent guy…"

Sephiroth stared blankly down at his brother. "I could say the same to you, Little Brother," he replied flatly. "I was sure you could seek your salvation through Jenova, but then you left…" He let out an enigmatic sigh and shook his head. He gave Riku a thinly veiled glare. "No matter. We shall continue this discussion on another day, Riku." He made to leave, but three steps down the front walk, he paused and turned to face Riku again, a small sneer on his lips. "Give my regards to your…husband. Sora, wasn't it? Jewish, isn't he?"

In a flash, Riku had shot to his brother and landed a heavy right hook. Sephiroth silently wiped away the trickle of blood that had escaped his mouth, his hard eyes focused completely on his younger brother. Riku's jaw was set and tight, his fists still shaking as his eyes crackled with fury. "Don't you fucking _dare_ talk about Sora," he hissed. "Just fucking stay away from us, Sephiroth. I don't want anything to do with you or Jenova. Just fucking go away and _stay away_."

Sephiroth was unfazed. "You know," he said softly, eyes sliding shut, as if relishing the moment. "Those were the same words our father said about our mother when he left us."

Riku instantly paled, looking stricken as he staggered back. And all at once, Naminé was standing protectively in front of her father, her eyes narrowed into an uncomfortable glower. I watched through the now-open door, still stunned stupid by the whole thing.

Sephiroth stared down his nose at Naminé, intrigue evident in his eyes, as if he'd never seen anything quite like her. His gaze returned to Riku and he asked, amused, "Is this your daughter?"

Naminé flushed darkly, but, to her credit, her voice didn't falter. "Please leave," she said, voice clipped and direct. "You are not welcome here."

"Hm," Sephiroth stooped his head slightly to address Naminé at eyelevel. "You are not very polite," he stated, and Naminé unconsciously flinched. The smallest of sneers tugged at his lips and his nose wrinkled in disdain. "That's no way to treat a guest, especially a family member." The sneer was vicious, now. "Clearly," Sephiroth murmured, eyes flashing vindictively, "your _heathenish_ upbringing has failed to teach you this."

Naminé's eyes flashed and a delicate hand shot out to strike Sephiroth, only to be quickly caught and held captive by one of his larger, callused hands. He chuckled, not releasing Naminé's hand. "So rude," he muttered, cat-like eyes almost glowing. He lifted his eyes back to Riku, who still was frozen, eyes wide. He smirked slightly. "Until next time, Little Brother." He let go of Naminé's hand. "May you think on the error of your ways and repent." Then he swept away into a black Oblivion and drove away.

Like clockwork, just as Sephiroth left, Roxas turned the corner into the cul-de-sac, gliding almost lazily on a skateboard. His face was puzzled, blond eyebrows furrowed in confusion and his lips pursed together. "What's going on?" he asked as he hopped off and jogged across the lawn toward us. "Was that just Sephiroth that left?" He sidled up to his sister and father, concerned. "Dad?"

Naminé gave him a dark look and made a jerky motion with her head, taking Riku's hand in her own and gently leading him past me and back inside the house. Riku still looked dazed and ready to cry. "I'm sorry you had to see that," she mumbled, ashamed. She gave Roxas a troubled look and whispered to him, "I'll call Pop and have him come home. You and Axel can go. I'll stay with Dad."

Roxas frowned. "But shouldn't I stay, too?"

"Roxas," Naminé sighed wearily. "Please. You weren't here just now. I can handle this. Besides…" She gave him a meaningful look. "It isn't very polite to just kick Axel out…"

"Wh-what?" Roxas' eyes widened.

"It's really not a big deal!" I said hurriedly, not wanting to impose on them. "I can just explore the town or something, I mean—"

Naminé gave me a rather annoyed look, and I couldn't help but wince and silence myself. She seemed rather pleased with this and ushered us away, promising that she'd take care of everything. Roxas, although he seemed bothered by the whole thing, reluctantly agreed.

* * *

**We'd settled for ****taking refuge in a local, air-conditioned** restaurant in an attempt to beat the heat. It was a longer walk than our previous ones, and along the way Roxas pumped me for details on the latest Sephiroth Sighting. I was going so crazy with the details that we'd already been seated by the time I'd finished relaying my story. Roxas' mouth had settled into a grim line.

"It's always a prelude for bad news whenever Sephiroth shows up," he told me gloomily. "Dad'll probably be upset for a week or something. Then Uncle Loz will randomly show up on our doorstep in tears. Then Uncle Yazoo will show up all pissed off and break a few plates and make us eat barbeque for a few days. _Then_ Uncle Kadaj will come barging into our house in hysterics and sleep in our guest room for a month." He groaned. "And _worst_ of all, Dad and Pop will end up having comfort sex for a week. It's gonna be like hell!" He slammed his head down on the table with a crazed sob.

I winced, but tried my best not to discourage him. "Well," I said, trying to be positive, "at least it's only a week, right? And they probably won't do it unless it's really late at night, right?"

Roxas gave me a wry smile. "If only!" He shook his head unhappily. "Dad and Pop'll be doing it at every possible moment, and they're so freaking _loud_ they can honestly wake Sleeping Beauty up." He shuddered. "It's terrible to say, but I'm actually surprised that Aurora—she's Marluxia's sister—hasn't woken up yet. I guess she's the only one getting any peace around here." He instantly looked guilty. "I shouldn't have said that…" He slouched in his seat, eyes lowered. "This next week is gonna suck," he complained, dejected.

"Aw, c'mon, Roxas, cheer up. Things'll get better." _Liar_.

Roxas raised his eyebrows and gave me an amused look. "Liar," he said, almost fondly. He rolled his eyes and reached for his menu, I mimicked his actions.

"What kind of food do they have here?" I asked him, despite the fact that my menu was open in front of me. I'd only briefly glanced at our surroundings. There was a heavy Middle Eastern flair to the restaurant, and it reminded me a lot of the Moroccan district in EPCOT. I mentioned this to Roxas and the look he gave me was reminiscent of my mom's 'woman, are you fucking kidding?' face.

"Axel," Roxas said patiently, setting his menu down flat over his plate and silverware. "This is a Turkish restaurant, remember? There's definitely gonna be a lot of resemblance to the Moroccan district… I think the people here are from the Turkish district in Agrabah."

I hummed at this, now understanding and feeling just a bit ignorant. "You know," I said idly, "my brother Reno got a job at some Turkish restaurant."

Roxas let out a noncommittal grunt of acknowledgement and continued studying his menu. "Hopefully he didn't get stuck at a crappy one," he said. "This is the best one in town, even if those Turks work you until you drop."

I gave him a small smirk. "Oh, yeah? Knowing Reno, he probably doesn't even have a job. I bet he made it all up." I closed my menu again and looked at the fancy golden logo of an Arabian palace on its cover. The name of the restaurant was sort of provocative: Cave of Wonders. I opened up my menu again, thoroughly tickled by the name of the restaurant.

Then I froze. Blinked. Blinked again. And closed the menu again and gawked at the logo. _Cave of Wonders? Isn't that…?_

And just when I was about to profess my great discovery, who should be our waiter but my own idiot brother? He was dressed like a typical waiter from the waist up: well-pressed white collared shirt and black vest, but from the waist _down_, he looked pretty crazy in his baggy pants. He wasn't looking at us, he was much too focussed with tightening the drawstrings on his harem-style pants. His pen was sitting tucked into one of the folds of the sash wrapped around his waist, and he was holding his notepad in his teeth, so everything he said to us was sort of muffled. "_When the wind's from the east/And the sun's from the west/And the sand in the glass is right_," he recited around the notepad.

(At the mention of sand being in a glass, I immediately grabbed my glass of water to check for grains of sand, like a total n00b. And Roxas did a face-palm and explained that the poem was referring to an hourglass.)

"_Come on down/Stop on by/Hop a carpet and fly/To another Arabian night_," Reno finished the verse with a heavy, mortified sigh and plucked the pen from his sash. He still hadn't looked at us. "May I take your order?"

Roxas and I were quiet for a few seconds, but I couldn't restrain myself, and I jeered, "So, explain to me what this 'Arabian night' package includes. From the way you're dressed, I'd say there's a harem involved. But tell me, do I get my own harem, or am I expected to share? 'Cause I don't like sharing."

Reno's head snapped up and his eyes grew huge and I swear that _fangs_ literally popped out of his mouth when he saw me smirking at him. And I've gotta give Roxas credit: he managed to hold Reno back and prevent him from turning me into a messy pulp. "Axel, you fucking _bitch_!" Reno hissed and snarled at me, his hands lashing out like an upset kitten's claws. "What the _fuck_ are you doing _here_?!"

I gave him an innocent look. "I'm just here to eat, Reno. I had no idea that this is where you…erm…'work'."

Reno lunged at me again, but Roxas held on tight and ground out, "He's telling the truth! I was the one that brought him here. I didn't even know you'd gone job hunting." Reno relaxed a little at this and Roxas let him go after his breathing had relaxed and he stopped growling at me.

Begrudgingly, my brother held out his notepad and glared sourly at me. "May I take your order?" he all but spat.

Since I'm a younger brother from hell, I had every intention of making this a long and miserable experience for Reno. I tapped my chin in a mock-thoughtful way. "I dunno," I said, cheerfully ignoring the fact that Reno had snapped his pen in his grip. I gave him an imploring look. "You're the knowledgeable employee," I pointed out. "What do _you_ suggest?"

Reno looked just about ready to maul me, but obviously thought better of it and restrained himself, if only because murdering a customer would basically shoot his pay check in the ass and guarantee the loss of his job. Roxas must've noticed this, because he quickly spoke up, "Everything here is pretty good…but if it's Turkish Delight you're looking for, you're better off going to Stone Table. Theirs is much better." He licked his lips as he skimmed over the menu again. "I think I'll just have the kebab platter," he told Reno.

"You've been here before, so I'm sure you know that it's a pretty large serving," Reno commented in an offhand way as he scribbled down the order.

"That is true." Roxas frowned. Then he turned to regard me, "Hey, Axel, d'you wanna share it, then?"

I blinked. "Uh, sure."

Reno nodded and collected our menus, looking much more professional now that he'd calmed down. "Anything to drink?" he asked.

My eyes must've lit up or something when he asked. "Can I have Lifestream?" Lifestream was always my favourite pop.

Reno nodded distractedly and made a small note. "Anything for you?" he asked Roxas.

Roxas shrugged. "Just water," he replied.

Reno nodded again and left, telling us that our order would be out in a few minutes.

Just after Reno disappeared into the kitchens, Roxas' suddenly said, voice low and subdued, "I'm really sorry you had to see that, earlier."

"What?" It took me a moment to realise he was referring to the encounter with Sephiroth and Riku. I coloured slightly. "Oh, that…" I sheepishly scratched at the back of my neck. "It's not a big deal…"

Roxas frowned, looking painfully remorseful. "It's not the kind of impression I'd like you to get of my family," he muttered. He sighed. "My dad's family wasn't always part of Jenova's Witnesses. They were originally part of the Straeh Modgnik community. They were members of the Ssenkrad ot Rood division," he clarified, the foreign words rolling easily off his tongue.

I nodded. Straeh Modgnik was a sort of unorganised faith that centred on the concept that enlightenment could be found through the heart and soul of an individual. It had a number of different sects and subdivided covens, and in spite of the varying practices and beliefs, Straeh Modgnik was the primary religion of the United Kingdoms of Harhtz. My own mother was a follower, but of a different sect—she was an advent member of the Traeh fo Sessecnirp.

"But then, my dad's father just up and left them." Roxas shrugged limply. "I really don't know what went on," he admitted, pausing only to thank Reno when he dropped off a basket of naan. "This was ages ago. Dad was, like, fourteen or fifteen."

I took a piece of bread and distractedly nibbled on it. "So, then what happened?"

"Well, my dad's mom sort of lost it," Roxas said, not unkindly. "She just…fell apart, I guess. And she started getting all involved in that Jenova cult-thing." He sighed. "The whole family got warped in it, actually." He took a piece of naan for himself and took an aggressive chomp out of it. "In fact," he said, voice muffled around the bread, "this was the cause of the only falling-out my parents have had to date."

"Seriously?" I asked. "Riku and Sora fought over this religion-shit?" It seemed kind of weird to imagine, but I really didn't know. I'd seen my share of religious psychopaths—particularly those Yevonites. They're complete lunatics.

Roxas nodded, his eyes glinting with irritation. "You have no idea," he drawled. "But Dad 'fessed up that it was really his fault." He made a vague flicking gesture with his wrist. "He got all depressed and made life really difficult for Pop—and your mom, too, now that I think about it." He drummed his fingers on the table, his head tilted back in thought. "The three of them went through a rough patch, that year," he affirmed with a nod.

"Really?" I was unusually interested in hearing Roxas talk about all this. Mom had never really told Reno or me much about her childhood, and even less about her friends. The most she'd ever told us was 'never go on a road-trip with your friends, no matter how close you are.'

"Yeah," Roxas said, chewing idly on some more bread, his blue eyes fixed on me. "I'm actually kinda surprised you've never heard of this story," he added, raising a blond eyebrow slightly. "This fight of theirs reached its peak during their road-trip."

"Their road-trip?" I echoed. _Pft. Figures._

"Yup," Roxas said as he tore off some more naan and popped it into his mouth. "Did your mom ever tell you about that story?" He grinned. "That was a fiasco, man. They all got separated and lost in the _Disney Park_ for a retardedly long time." He snickered. "And my Pop ended up running around with the guys who dress in the Goofy and Donald costumes." He grinned at me, eyes glimmering. "It sounded pretty damn epic, if you ask me."

I squinted. "He was travelling with Goofy and Donald?" Why did this all sound so familiar…?

"In case you haven't realised," Roxas piped up, seeing the pensive expression on my face, "This is where Pop got the inspiration for _Castle Soul_."

I practically jumped out of my seat.

"_FOR REAL_?!" I exclaimed, eyes bursting from their sockets.

Roxas watched me impassively from his seat, still chewing his bread. (He was probably used to these sorts of dramatics—living with Ven and whatnot.) He swallowed and nodded in an uninterested sort of way. "That's right. Miyu's character is based on my pop, Mamoru is my dad, and Risa is your mom."

(_Oh, so _that's_ why Mom used to always ogle Risa and be like 'Now, THAT girl is one hot piece of shit.'_)

I gawked at him for a brief moment before slowly sinking back in my seat. I cast a withering look at the one woman dressed in an elaborate fur coat who was giving me the stink-face. When I turned my attention back to Roxas, he had a small smirk on his face that actually suited him in a way that made him look like Roxas and not Ven. (If that makes any sense.)

"Is it seriously that shocking?" he asked, amused. His eyebrows were raised the slightest bit, and he was leaning back in his chair, practically draping his limbs about. There was a small powdered sugar stain on his left thigh, just peeking out from beneath the hem of his t-shirt.

Licking my lips, I roughly averted my eyes back to the blond's face. I stared mutely for a moment. _Was it just me, or had his smirk gotten wider…?_ I quickly shook off my unease, and forced out a strained bark of laughter. "I guess fanfiction writers aren't totally off their rockers when they pair off Miyu and Mamoru."

Roxas chuckled wryly. "You have _no_ idea."

* * *

**I guess it's only obvious that Roxas and I** ended up being kicked out of the restaurant. Well, that's not exactly accurate. _I_ got kicked out of the restaurant for "harassing" Reno, and Roxas only left with me because he was basically my only ticket back to our cul-de-sac.

Seriously, it's not my fault. Reno was just _asking_ to have the saffron thrown at him.

So, we were sitting there on the curb outside Cave of Wonders, picking at our Styrofoam container of kebab with plastic forks, when an obnoxious Gummi pulled up beside us and the window rolled down, revealing Naminé behind the steering wheel. She looked bemused, albeit harried—probably from all the drama at her home. She parked the car, turned it off, and slipped out from her seat, leaned tiredly against the car, and regarded us with a curious gaze. "What're you guys doing out here?" she asked unceremoniously as she lifted a pale hand to her face and rubbed dazedly at her eyes. Her eyes hovered from me to Roxas. "I thought you guys were just gonna go eat…why take-out?" she mused.

Roxas let a short bark of laughter and flicked a few grains of rice at me. "This kook got us kicked out," he informed his sister as he raised an arm to shield himself from the rice I was flinging at him.

"It was _not_ my fault," I argued stubbornly, chucking some more rice at him. Roxas just laughed and used his fork as a catapult to lob a piece of fried tomato at me. The tomato landed on my cheek with a nasty-sounding _fulp!_ and Naminé let out a soft moan of revulsion that was easily drowned out by Roxas' roar of laughter. Disgusted, I peeled the tomato wedge off my face and chucked it away with a groan. I rounded on Roxas, ready to bitch my evil nonexistent heart out, when I found I just couldn't. He was laughing so hard, he was doubled over and clutching his sides, tears leaking out his eyes something fierce. He looked so happy—even if it was at my expense—that I just couldn't bring myself to stab his blue eyes out with my fork.

But the temptation was still great, so I settled for throwing a handful of rice at him, a bunch of grains settling in between his spikes of hair. Roxas' face fell within nanoseconds when he realised I had avenged myself.

His mouth curved downwards and he immediately brought both of his hands to his hair, mussing it and trying to remove the rice. He glared at me from the corners of his eyes. "Dude," he said, sounding caught between annoyance and entertainment. "Not cool."

I stuck my tongue out at him in retaliation. "You started it," I jibed childishly as he went back to picking rice out of his hair. Naminé sighed, a small grin on her face, and shook her head at our antics.

"You guys are strange," she mumbled, shaking her head in amused resignation. She tilted her head to the side, pursing her lips slightly as she scrutinised Roxas' hair. "You missed a few," she said vaguely, making an odd sort of gesture with her eyebrows rather than her hands.

Roxas scowled deeply and started running his fingers through his hair. "Where?" he asked, an almost petulant whine threading into his voice. Naminé gave her brother a weary look and I couldn't help but sigh.

"Here," I muttered, giving in and extending a hand to help Roxas pick the remaining rice from his hair.

Naminé giggled into her palm as she watched us. "You guys look like monkeys or something," she remarked, her eyes sparkling with an unfathomable delight.

I made a face at her. Roxas merely quirked an eyebrow. "Don't let Grandma hear you say that," he advised, having completely surrendered himself to being "groomed" by me. "She'll go ballistic if you make any sort of comment that makes monkeys or apes or whatever sound inferior."

Naminé rolled her eyes in response. "Grandma—Pop's mom—is a little obsessed with monkeys," she said matter-of-factly. Roxas made a low humming sound in the back of his throat, but didn't disagree.

I glanced curiously up at Naminé, not really following the conversation. "Your grandmother?"

"She's a primatologist," she explained. "So is our great-grandfather. They study primates—and they're both completely _infatuated_ with gorillas."

I furrowed my brow as I strained my memory for information from the biology course I'd taken sometime back. "Primates are mammals, right?" I asked lamely.

"_Nice_ one, Captain Obvious," Roxas snickered. I tugged playfully on a lock of his hair to shut him up.

"Yup," Naminé said with a nod of confirmation. "Actually, humans are primates, too."

Roxas turned and smirked widely at me. "And that means that _we're_ mammals, too," he said. He wiggled his eyebrows and his grin turned lascivious. "You know what that means, right?"

Naminé clapped a hand over her eyes and shook her head, silvery-blonde hair flying wildly. "Oh, Roxas, _please_ don't quote that song… You know how much I hate it…"

My eyes widened in alarm as Roxas continued looking at me like I was his dinner. "Wh-what song?" I asked Naminé hastily, trying in vain to edge away from Roxas—little blond frick just kept moving _closer_ and _closer_.

And what happened next was like some sort of really bad porn movie. Except not really, because there really wasn't anything explicit about it. Just the same, it made my stomach clench weirdly.

With a last, deliberate look at Naminé, Roxas swivelled back to face me and drawled, "_You and me, baby, ain't nothin' but mammals/So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel_."

And with Roxas totally in my face, softly murmuring freakishly provocative lyrics with a totally straight face and half-lidded eyes, the only thing going through my head was '_aslfjawoieurwoef_'.

And my facial expression must've reflected the pure AWKWARD flying around me, because when Roxas pulled away, his face split into a shit-eating grin and he started cracking up. "Dude!" he sniggered, "Your face is completely red!"

I think my face got even redder at seeing him practically die of laughter. "F-fuck you!" I choked out. My badass retaliation seemed to do little for redemption. Roxas paused in his laughter for a brief second to merely give me the classic "bitch, please" face then promptly went back to laughing like a hyena.

Naminé had more sympathy for my disgusting show of lameness. "Just ignore him, Axel," she said resolutely, clearly used to these sorts of break-outs. "He gets like this once in a while." She nodded sagely. "He should calm down in a few minutes."

I wasn't so sure I believed her. From the way Roxas was laughing, it seemed like he was _inhaling_ pure laughing gas. I was willing to guess that he'd still be chortling about this next Thursday.

Bastard.

"Anyway," Naminé said, pushing herself off the car to stand upright. She glanced at her watch. "I just came along to see if you guys wanted to head back home," she informed us—well, she informed _me_; Roxas wasn't exactly listening. "Your mom just got back," she told me as she pulled a keychain with my mom's lucky charm out of her pocket and tossed it lightly to me.

I caught the keychain and couldn't help but be confused at the situation. "Mom's back?" I asked, disbelieving. "She was gonna go to a locksmith, wasn't she…?"

"That was the original plan," Naminé said with a nod, and a small smile tugged at her lips. "She was horrified by the cost the locksmith was demanding, so she asked Pop to do it for her."

I gawked. "Sora knows how to work with locks?" Seriously, he speaks Moogle, he basically created _Castle Soul_…is there anything he can't do?

Smiling sheepishly, Naminé replied, "Sort of. It was an odd job Pop had as a teenager. He used to unlock stuff and make new keys and locks and stuff." She shrugged. "He just had a knack for it, and he offered to do it for your mom for free."

"No wonder Mom agreed," I guffawed. She was such a cheap person at heart.

Naminé smiled wryly before continuing. "Yeah, well, she came over to our house, looking for you, and when she heard about what happened today—y'know, with Dad—she decided to hang with Dad and Pop for moral support." She paused and nodded toward the keys in my hand. "She brought you some food from Stone Table, so you won't starve when you get back."

"Well," I said slowly, overwhelmed and shocked that my mom had done something thoughtful. "Um, that sounds all right, but what about you guys?" I asked. "What would you guys do?"

Roxas, who had calmed down sometime in the seconds before, gave me a friendly grin. "Don't worry about us, man. We'll find something to entertain us," he said reassuringly.

"For real?" I asked dubiously.

Naminé nodded earnestly. "For real," she said. Then she frowned a little. "Actually, I was also sent out to pick Ven up from the Backdoor Mall's security. Apparently he threatened some politician or the other." Roxas let out a snort of laughter.

"Again?" he chuckled. "That's the third time this week…"

Naminé cast a reproving look at her brother. "You know what he's like when he's not with Terra," she muttered, averting her eyes when he started smirking.

Probably sensing that I was missing out on part of the conversation, Roxas turned to regard me. "The Backdoor Mall is the local gay mall," he explained to me.

I gawked. "A gay mall?" Then I paused and thought about it. "I guess the name is appropriate, then," I said blandly. Roxas chuckled.

"The name was really more of a coincidence than anything else," he said, inclining his head knowingly. "See, Backdoor Mall was literally just that—a mall that you had to enter via the backdoor. 'Cause it's an underground mall and it's located beneath Frontdoor Mall, and the main entrance to the Backdoor Mall is on the opposite side of the building of the Frontdoor Mall's door."

I stared at him. "Then why didn't they just _combine_ the two malls…?"

Roxas and Naminé stared at me like they'd never heard more ridiculous words in their lives.

Feeling uneasy, I laughed nervously. "Uh, so just take me home, then."

* * *

**The Afterword:** ACK. I took sooo long on this. There really is nothing I can say to make up for this lameitude… I'm really sorry, guys. This chapter isn't even all that great… D:

Like, I'd spent my summer updating "_Twilight_" (which has just turned a year old, today) and writing my beastly oneshot "_How to Succeed in Business Without Really Crying_", and I guess that I just pushed this away into a dark corner… I gotta say, this chapter was seriously fighting to not be written. It's kind of annoying, really.

I've got some stuff planned for the next chapter, though, unlike this chapter, which I went into pretty blindly… D: So, the next one should go along more quickly.

One more thing! I have a poll on my profile pertaining to pairings with Cloud Strife. :D I'd like to see what you guys think!


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